


Children of the Made

by bookscatscoffee



Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: Adventure, Kids, Multi, what am i getting myself into
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-31
Updated: 2017-06-04
Packaged: 2018-08-12 02:57:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 28,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7917802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookscatscoffee/pseuds/bookscatscoffee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-ACOTAR3 (Separate from ACOWAR).<br/>They always knew their children would be powerful, but they didn't know just how much trouble they would get themselves in. Their strange new bloodlines have woken up some very old creatures who are thirsty for their new blood.<br/>"I am the heir to the most powerful court in Prythian, and I will protect my people with my dying breath."<br/>"Has anyone ever told you you have a flair for dramatics?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So this is a fun thing I'm trying. This chapter is a lot of fluff, but be warned, if I continue this these kids are about to go through hell. Enjoy!

RHYSAND

I had never let myself have a dream this happy. With my position and my power, I had let myself become content with being feared by everyone outside my Court of Dreams, and content with keeping my heart from everyone, even my Inner Circle, simply because no one would want it.

So at times like now when my daughter tries to pick a fight with me, it’s all I can do not to smile and anger her even more.

“But I’m thirteen,” Rhiannon snapped. “I don’t need a babysitter. I can take care Bryce myself, right Bryce?”

Bryce was not paying attention to our conversation in the slightest, instead he watched from his seat at our dinner table with an excited grin as Feyre set his plate of grilled cheese in front of him. She ruffled his messy dark hair as he snatched it up and took a bite. I smiled at the scene, while Rhia sighed.

“Right, Bryce?”

He turned to her then with a mouthful of food. When he noticed her frown, he swallowed and nodded his agreement. “Of course, Rhia!”

Feyre pressed her lips together to hide a smile as she walked over to where I leaned against the wall of our dining room. I took her by her waist and pulled her back into my chest, placing a light kiss in her hair.

“You know, Bryce, you don’t have to agree with everything your sister says,” she teased.

Rhia crossed her arms where she stood in the doorway of the room. Bryce blinked at us as he chewed his food, like the thought had never occurred to him. When my daughter didn’t immediately fire back, I continued on.

“Elain and Lucien don’t want Elwyn around when the Autumn Court visits them anyways, darling. It’s a win-win for all of us.”

“That stupid Autumn Court. Why are they still around anyways? No one likes them.”

“They’re a powerful court, Rhia,” Feyre replied, still holding down a smile.

She rolled her eyes, the same violet shade as my own. “Yeah, but we’re the most powerful, right?”

“Right,” my mate and I answered in unison. Bryce nodded along.

“Exactly. I get it, you guys have been involved in like, a bunch of wars already. So that’s the first thing I’ll do when I’m High Lady. Get rid of the stupid Autumn Court.”

“You’ll get rid of an entire court? What about all the lives, darling?” I kept any judgment out of my tone as I questioned her, which Feyre and I both made sure to do whenever our daughter brought up any of her future plans.

She furrowed her eyebrows in thought. “Okay, not the whole court. But Uncle Lucien’s dad and brothers for sure. Do you think his mom would want to be in charge? Or maybe Uncle Lucien could be. Autumn and Spring border each other, right?”

I nodded. Rhia, now lost in thought, turned on her heel and walked away, our earlier argument already forgotten. I don’t think she even got past the foyer before I heard her scream, followed by a loud cackle and the front door of our townhouse opening. Bryce gasped and darted to the foyer, Feyre and I sharing a knowing look before following.

We entered the foyer of our townhouse just in time to see Rhia shove her still-laughing cousin into the wall. Nesta shut the door behind her, shaking her head with exasperation, while Cassian grinned and kneeled down to catch and lift Bryce as he ran into his arms.

“Wasn’t our door locked?” Feyre questioned, putting a hand on her hip.

Rhia whirled around to look at us, pointing an accusing finger at her cousin. “Cei walked _through_ the door to jump me, and then unlocked the door!”

I raised an eyebrow at Cassian. “You’re teaching him to control his power by breaking-and-entering?”

He shrugged, still grinning, and turned a shrieking Bryce upside down as he stood, holding him tight in one arm.

Our kids were gifts from the Cauldron, no doubt about it, with Bryce being a near-miracle. Children were rare enough for fey, and Rhiannon and Bryce being four years apart from the same parents was unheard of. The weeks following his birth involved him and Feyre being sick and half-conscious in bed, memories that filled me with fear just thinking about them again and stayed locked away in the back of my mind. Rhia and Cei were only a year apart, looking almost like siblings with the same tanned skin and golden hair. The two of them had already come into a lot of powerful abilities they were struggling to figure out and control. Rhia already has nearly all of Feyre’s powers, and her Night Court abilities were through the roof being the child of a High Lord and High Lady, the first in history. Bryce was just now coming into his powers, and so far has only manipulated darkness and water.

After being Made, Nesta with her iron will took a lot more power from the Cauldron than it had meant to give, leaving her with powers of fire, daemati abilities, and the ability to manipulate things around her, whether that’s by moving objects or crushing them. Cei, along with having Cassian’s Illyrian powers, also picked up Nesta’s fire and, rather than manipulating objects, can manipulate himself. He can turn intangible, letting him walk through walls, let objects pass through him, or occasionally slip into the floor when he’s not paying attention.

Lucien and Elain’s son has only shown signs of Spring magic so far, although they’ve mentioned that the forest and the animals always act strange around him. I hadn’t witnessed it myself, but Feyre said she noticed it as well when she went out riding with him, Lucien, and Rhia recently.

“At least you don’t live with this,” Nesta grumbled, giving her mate a glare as he set a squirming Bryce back onto his feet. “Cassian made a game of throwing things at our kid randomly throughout the day to see if he can react quick enough and let it pass through him.”

Cassian rolled his eyes. “I’m training him, sweetheart.”

“So train him outside, idiot. You broke a window last week.”

Cei pushed himself away from the wall with a grin, his hazel eyes bright with mischief. “I’m getting really good at it.”

“Last time I did it I hit you in the head.”

Cei narrowed his eyes, his demeanor changing from his father to just like his mother so quickly it made me suddenly worry about how he would be when he grows up. “Only because you threw the spoon right when mom started talking to me.”

Nesta opened her mouth, probably about to bitch out Cassian for that as well. I cleared my throat, hating to stop this normal, light banter, but knowing that these two came over for more than just a fun visit. Mor, Azriel and Amren would be here any minute as well.

“We have things to discuss, yes?”

Nesta shut her mouth and Cassian crossed his arms, the couple now all business. Cei and Rhiannon shared a glance, and Bryce sauntered over to stand behind his sister.

“Are you guys gonna talk about your trip to the Court of Nightmares tomorrow?” Rhia asked.

Feyre shifted next me. “Yes.”

“Can we-”

“No.”

Cei’s eyes were narrowed again. “We can’t even know what it’s about?”

“There’s an issue we have to take care of,” I said.

Rhia set her chin high. “There’s never been an issue that’s made all of you have to stay the night there.”

“Yes, but it’s still not big enough of an issue that any of you need to worry about.”

Cei crossed his arms. “Are we ever even gonna get to see the Court of Nightmares?”

Ice ran through me at thought, and I felt the same reaction from Feyre through our bond. Cassian and Nesta shared a wide-eyed glance.

Feyre answered first. “Not for a very long while.”

I didn’t want the three of them to ever, ever have to go the horrid place. But I knew that eventually Rhiannon would have to, at the very least, as their heir. The thought of my daughter visiting such a tainted place, having to wear a mask of cruelty, and see Feyre and I play our part as vicious rulers made me sick. But she had the makings of a leader already, while Bryce…I don’t know if he would ever be able to wear such a mask. Feyre, sensing my unease, sent a calming caress down our bond.

“How come?” Bryce asked gently. “We met the Autumn Court last month, and they were mean, but it didn’t go badly, did it?”

I held back a wince as the four of us shared glances and our children waited for a reply. It hadn’t gone bad necessarily. Beron and his sons had publicly requested to get to meet the Night Court younglings in such a way that Feyre and I couldn’t refuse without seeming suspicious. We all got through the dinner at the Autumn Court with little mishap and they didn’t learn what they wanted about our kids’ unpredictable powers. But one of Beron’s sons kept subtly eyeing Rhia all night, Cei insulted the entire court in front of Beron without realizing it, and Bryce offered some food to another one of the sons, made polite conversation and almost left the room with him to go on a walk, just the two of them, without Feyre and I noticing and stopping it until the last second.

“Not necessarily,” Feyre answered.

“But the Autumn Court was on their absolute best behavior,” I added. “And the Court of Nightmares doesn’t have best behavior. They’re just bad, worse, or downright awful.”

Cei opened his mouth again to argue, but Rhia held up a hand and sighed. “You’re probably right. We’ll just have to wait.” Her cousin blinked at her in surprise, but she looked down at her brother with a bright grin. “That new art exhibit is finally open in the Rainbow anyways.”

Bryce gasped and grabbed her hand. “Really? Let’s go see it!”

She laughed and then turned back to her cousin. “C’mon Cei, I’m sure you’ll like it.”

Cei frowned and shrugged. “Sure, okay.”

The three of them walked out the door with Rhia calling over her shoulder. “We’ll be back by dinner!”

The four of us silently stared at each other for a few moments after the door closed.

“She’s totally plotting something,” Cassian said.

Feyre and I shared a glance. “Of course she is,” she muttered.    

* * *

 

“Do you think the kids should stay at the House of Wind?” Feyre asked the room.

My mate was curled up in my lap in our seat closest to the fireplace, her head tucked under my chin and my arms wrapped around her, one hand playing with her golden locks of hair. Mor was sprawled out on the floor in front of the fire, while Cassian, Azriel and Amren sat on the couch. Nesta stood next to Cassian, staring out into the front yard through the window, absentmindedly twirling the ends of his dark hair in her fingers.

“If they did, they’d be farther from me,” Amren answered. “If I’m going to be tracking the strange energy spikes while you’re all gone, I have to do it in my apartment.”

Mor stretched her arms above her head and rolled on her side to look up at us. “Don’t be so paranoid, Feyre. The townhouse is perfectly safe for the babies.”

Feyre wrinkled her nose. “I know. That doesn’t make me worry any less.”

I placed a soft kiss on her forehead, and she curled tighter into my chest. Night had long since fallen, and our Inner Circle had been going over details of the strange spikes of magic happening throughout Prythian, and the plan for keeping an eye on the Court of Nightmares tomorrow night to try and find a connection.

“The kids are home,” Nesta cut in, turning away from the window for the first time in the past hour.

Cei and Bryce’s voices could be heard before the front door even opened, and when it did Rhia shushed them loudly as they came in. Without even a greeting, the three of them started to slink up the stairs. Mor hopped up with a bright grin.

“What, no hello?”

The three of them froze and shared glances before turning to us. Feyre slid out of my lap to stand, pulling me up with her by my hand.

Rhia smiled tightly. “Hey, Aunt Mor. Great to see you.” She and Cei both moved to stand in front of Bryce, who seemed to be clutching his stomach.

“Is everything okay?” Feyre asked slowly.

“You guys were gone for a while,” Nesta added, eyes narrowed.

“Oh, yeah, sorry. We got caught up at the Rainbow, and then Bryce wanted some ice cream, so we stopped for that too.” Rhia widened her smile to a grin.

There was a short silence as us four parents shared a glance, and then a gentle meow sounded from the kids’ direction. Cei coughed loudly. Rhia’s grin didn’t falter, but Bryce’s blue-grey eyes flickered down to his shirt.

“Bryce, there’s a cat in your shirt, isn’t there?” Feyre sighed.

Our son swallowed, still clutching his midsection. “She’s alone and a stray and I love her.” Another meow.

“It started following him around in the Rainbow and now they’re inseparable,” Rhia said.

“Her name is Luna,” Cei added.

Bryce reached under his dark shirt and pulled out a small kitten, its dark hair thin and dirty and its yellow eyes wide. Holding it to his chest, he looked back up at Feyre and I with a hopeful expression. My mate turned to me. I raised an eyebrow.

_What do you think, darling?_

_Well, I suppose I don’t hate cats that much_.

“You can keep the cat,” I answered.

Rhia and Cei turned to Bryce, grinning, while he gasped excitedly and set the runt on the ground. “Explore your new home, Luna!”

Luna mewed again, sniffed the floor, and then gazed around the room. She locked sights on Azriel, and darted through Mor’s legs to reach his feet. He frowned down at her. She mewed.

“Yes?”

The kitten took that as an invitation to leap into his lap and sit. He blinked at her, and then looked up at Mor for help. She laughed, throwing her blonde hair over her shoulder as she pranced over to him.

“It’s a kitten, Az. You pet it.” She gave it a scratch on the head for emphasis as she sat in the rest of the space on his lap. Amren wrinkled her nose at the animal. Cassian noticed and grinned.

“What, Amren, you don’t like cats?”

She pursed her lips, not even sparing him a glance. “We’re too alike.”

Indeed, the kitten seemed to disregard her just as she did it, leaping over her lap completely and into Cassian’s. He scratched it under the chin.

“Hey, little thing. You’re kinda cute-ow!” He snatched his hand away. “It bit me!”

Nesta threw her head back and laughed, the rest us following suit. Except for Cassian, who pouted, and Bryce, who ran over and pulled the kitten away protectively.

“She’s just playing, Uncle Cas.”

“Yeah, whatever. I don’t like cats anyways.”

Feyre still struggled to catch her breath from laughing, and I pulled her into me, nuzzling her neck.

_Yes?_

_Nothing, darling_.

My mate sent a stroke of affection down our bond, which I returned as I watched Bryce hold his new pet away from Cassian, who still glared at it.

“I like the little devil,” Nesta grinned wickedly. “Cei, do you want a cat?”

“Nesta,” her mate whined.

Laughter filled the room again. It was these moments of peace, with these people, this family, that I had never let myself dream. I don’t know if any dream could’ve come close to this, anyhow.

* * *

 

As Feyre closed our bedroom door behind her after saying goodnight to the kids, I could read the worried crease between her eyebrows as well I as could feel the anxiety through our bond. I sat up on the edge of our bed and held a hand out to her.

“What’s wrong, Feyre darling?”

She padded over and took my hand in hers, kissing my knuckles. “I’m worried about Bryce.”

I swallowed, looking up at her in the lowlighting of our room. “I know.”

“I don’t know where he got this softness from because I know neither of us were ever so open. I love him, and I don’t want him to change, but-,” she cut off and pressed her lips together.

But our world targeted the gentle. I pulled my hand out of hers to wrap my arms around her slim waist, pressing a light kiss to her stomach.

“We have a little while before we really need to worry. We’ll help him.”

“I hope so,” she whispered. For a few moments, we stayed like that in the silence, her fingers now running through my hair. Until her touch moved to my bare shoulders, and then the spot where my wings met my back. I straightened, moving to grip her by her hips and push her shirt up slightly to kiss and lick at her smooth skin. Her breathing hitched, and I grinned against her skin as I smelt her desire and her hands stroked the sensitive membrane of my wings.

“If there’s one good thing about this damn trip to the Court of Nightmares,” I murmured, “it’s that we get a room to ourselves, far away from anyone else. It’s been _weeks_ since I’ve gotten to hear you scream for me, Feyre.”

She suddenly danced out of my arms with a smirk and when she spoke, her voice was low. “Let’s just hope you’re not rusty, High Lord.”

With a growl, I yanked her into bed with me by her wrists. “Say it again, you wicked thing.”

She laughed as I trailed kisses down her neck, until I traveled lower, and her laughter turned to gasps, and we tangled in each other and our sheets and melted into each other’s touch.  

RHIANNON

I woke up in the middle of the night to a sudden scratching at the end of my bed. I stiffened, fear running through me, until I remembered Bryce’s new pet. With a groan, I sat up, rubbing my eyes and letting my covers fall to my waist. Once my eyes adjusted to the familiar darkness of my room, the fear shot back through me, for there as not a kitten at the end of my bed.

A hunched over figure kneeled at the foot of my bed, jerking, scratching savagely at the floor. I held back the scream that bubbled in my chest, reaching behind me to my side table for a candle. I felt nothing but an empty lantern and nearly started to shake. The thing stilled. I held my breath. The head whipped around, its long hair flying. In the darkness, its glowing eyes locked with mine. My wings flared behind me, my own personal darkness leaking from me in waves as I had seen my parents do as a show of power to other courts. Out of the corner of my eye I saw my empty fireplace. I couldn’t shoot my fire that far without missing, but if I moved quickly enough and could make some light, I would stand a better chance in a fight. The thing hissed something at me I couldn’t make out, and then leapt.

The scream that had been building in my chest escaped my lips as I jumped away, sliding on the wood floor to my fireplace and shooting flames from my fingers. Crackling light and warmth filled my room. I whirled, searching for the creature, my legs too shaky to let me stand. My bedroom door burst open, my parents running to me. I blinked, still searching my room as my mother kneeled next to me.

“Rhiannon, Rhia, what’s wrong?” She crooned, brushing back my hair. At her calming touch, I realized just how badly I shook and tried to still.

“Something-there was, was-”

“Deep breaths, darling,” my father murmured. “Steady yourself before you speak.”

I did as he said and folded my hands in my lap. “There was something here. In my room. A creature.”

My mom looked up at my dad, who spun, searching my room with narrowed eyes and stalked around the corner to my bath.

She turned back to me with concern shining in her grey-blue eyes. “Are you hurt?”

I shook my head as my father came back around the corner.

“I don’t smell anything. What did you see?”

Before I could put words to the image burned in my mind, a small meow sounded. We turned and watched as Luna padded out from under my bed. My parents shared a glance, my mom letting out a light laugh and pulled the kitten over with one hand.

“Mystery solved,” she grinned, giving the animal a scratch behind the ear. It purred in response. “You must have heard her scratching and your mind started playing tricks on you.”

I blinked at the cat. Hadn’t that been my original thought? Screaming and running from a kitten. What an heir.

“What did you see?”

Bryce’s young, serious voice nearly made us jump. He stood in my doorway, frowning, his blanket wrapped around his shoulders. The firelight danced across his pale features, the freckles on his nose and cheekbones looking like stars on his pale skin.

I forced a smile on my face. “Nothing, Bryce. Just some nightmare, or something, I guess.” At the word nightmare, his face paled. Mom glanced behind her shoulder at dad, and then stood with a small smile as she walked over to Bryce with his pet in her arms.

“It’s nothing to worry about, sweetheart. Why don’t we go give Luna some milk, and you can have some cookies, too?”

He didn’t take his wide gaze off of me until mom rested a hand on his shoulder. He blinked up at her, and then smiled. “Okay.”

I watched with a frown as she led him down the hall and the stairs, thrown off by my little brother’s reaction. Dad held out his hand to help me up, looking down at me with a reassuring smile.

“Would you like to go flying?”

“Wait, what? Now?”

He shrugged. “Why not? We’re both awake, aren’t we?”

As I thought about it, going flying was exactly what I needed to steady myself. I took his hand and he hauled me up, and then leaned in close to me. His next words were hesitant.

“Rhia, if it might help, I could look at what you saw, if that would help reassure you.”

My eyes widened, and I surprised myself as I checked and realized I actually had my mind shields up. I doubted they were actually strong enough to hold my father back, but he had never, not once, broken my shields outside of training once I learned how to keep them up. But I’ve been trying to prove myself to him and mom, and I didn’t want him to see just how scared I had gotten over my own imagination. And another part of me was even more scared that the opposite would be true.

“I’m fine dad. It was just a nightmare,” I shrugged.

He frowned. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah.” My voice nearly cracked as I lied through my teeth. “C’mon, hurry up and go change. You can’t fly in a robe.” I walked out of my room and started to make my way to the stairs.

“Oh, you think so?” He teased, following after me.

“Even pajamas would be better.”

“I don’t think you’ve seen my pajamas, darling. That wouldn’t be better for you. Your mother, maybe.”

“Dad, that’s _gross_!” My face burned and I hurried down the stairs. He laughed and shut his door behind him as he went to change. I met mom and Bryce in the light of the kitchen, still trying to rid the images of those glowing eyes from my head. Bryce sat at the table munching on cookies, his legs swinging from the chair, and Luna sat on the table, lapping milk from a bowl.

I am the heir to the most powerful throne in Prythian, and I needed to start showing it. Making a mistake like waking my parents up in the middle of the night because I thought I saw something in my room probably didn’t do me any pointers. Cei and I had decided earlier that once we both learned how to winnow, we would pay a visit and prove ourselves at the Court of Nightmares, but who knew who long that would be. Neither of us had even started. For now, my focus was taking care of Bryce. I already noticed how extra-protective and lenient my parents and the whole Inner Circle was on him, for whatever reason, so I would protect him with everything I had, too. I was his big sister, so that was probably my job anyways. A new image painted itself in my head, suddenly. I would be the stern ruler, with Cei as my right-hand and my brawn, and my older cousin Elwyn as my closest ally and outside source, and Bryce would be saving kittens and able to show his kindness to those who deserved it, and knowing him, those who didn’t, too.

So when dad came downstairs in pants and a tight shirt, stretching his wings behind him, I grinned broadly at him with this bright plan growing in my mind, and he and mom glanced at each other before returning my smile, unrestrained. And maybe, if I was lucky, I would meet someone who I could share as many affectionate glances and touches and words with as my parents did. But for now I had them, and Bryce, and I made a vow to myself in our kitchen with the starlight of Velaris shining through the window that I would protect them no matter the threat with everything, everything that I had.   


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't get a chance to proofread this, so sorry for any errors! Enjoy!

FEYRE

It probably wasn’t good that Rhys and I barely got any sleep the night before we had to stay at Hewn City, but neither of us were going to complain.

When Rhia and Rhys went out flying, Bryce had finished his cookies and then asked if he could sleep in our room for the rest of the night. He had been coming to our door in the middle of the night for nearly a week now asking to sleep with us because of his nightmares. There was a small, cruel part of me that wanted to tell him no, that he should start to toughen up, and I desperately crushed that part of myself anytime it showed itself. Whenever he crawled into our large bed with us, I would be reminded of fever dreams and weak prayers during the weeks after his birth when my frail body held his dying one, and so I pull him close to me as he cuddled into my side.

Amren once told Rhys and I that we coddled our children too much, and Rhys simply replied, “We can coddle them and still teach them to be strong, Amren.”

Rhys, whose family had been torn from him by betrayal and bloodshed, who cried when I told him I was pregnant, who taught our kids to be proud and bow to no one, but also how to gaze at the stars and always wish for something better. My mate who, when Rhiannon was a baby, I confessed to that I wasn’t sure I knew how to be a mother, but that I didn’t want to be like mine; he said back that he wasn’t sure he knew how to be father, either, but we knew how to love and how to dream, and that would be enough.

I woke up to the comforting, familiar darkness of Rhys’ wings blanketed over me and our son who was curled up in between us, his kitten laying on her back at his feet. I blinked my eyes open to see Rhys watching us with a sleepy smile. A knock came at our door, and Bryce groaned and rolled over.

“Come in,” Rhys called. Rhia sauntered into our room and jumped onto our bed, already dressed for the day. Her long hair was braided to the side, the only attribute that was from me. Everything else, from her violet eyes to her proud persona was her father all the way. Cassian had joked that she was basically Rhys in girl form. I sat up and yawned, Rhys pulling his wing back.

“Good morning, Rhia. Why are you already up?”

“I made breakfast for everyone.”

Bryce finally stirred and crawled over to his sister with wide eyes. “Breakfast?”

“Pancakes, bacon and hashbrowns,” she smiled.

Rhys frowned as he sat up. “Did you get to sleep at all after we got back, darling?”

She blinked and looked away, pulling her brother off of the bed with her. “Um, yeah. C’mon, the food’s getting cold.” She pulled Bryce out of the room by his hand. Yawning and stretching, Luna hopped down and bounded after them.

I bit my lip and turned to Rhys. “They’re too young to have so much trouble sleeping. Maybe we should wait to go away for a night.”

He pulled me into his chest and buried his face in my hair. I wrapped my arms around his neck, breathing in his citrus scent, now forever entangled with mine.

“They’ve just been jittery lately, Feyre. Their cousins are going to be with them, they’ll be just fine.”

I sighed. “I know.” Giving me a gentle kiss, Rhys took my hand and we went down to the kitchen together. I inhaled deeply, and we shared a grin as we entered. The food was stacked on the counters, just enough for the four of us, steaming and browned to perfection. Rhiannon piled Bryce’s plate with food where he sat at the table, nearly standing in his seat.

“Wow, thanks Rhia!”

“You’ve outdone yourself, Rhia darling.” My mate lifted her in his arms and planted a sloppy, obnoxious kiss on top of her head that she wrinkled her nose at. He set her down with a laugh as she fixed her braid. “It smells amazing.”

“What’s the occasion?” I added, taking a seat next to Bryce, who had already made a huge dent in his portion.  

“I just thought since you two are going away overnight for the first time and all, and I know Hewn City sucks that I’d do something nice for you.” She set my plate in front of me with a smile, Rhys taking his seat across from me, his expression soft and loving as he watched her.

“There’s no ulterior motive we need to know about?” He teased.

“Or a secret plot you’re covering up?” I forced my smile down as I took a bite of food.

She huffed as she set her own plate down. “Can’t I do anything nice for you guys without it being suspicious?” Rhys and I shared a glance as we stared to eat, hiding our grins. A knock came at our door followed by sing-songy, “Fey-re?”

I looked at the time and jumped up from my chair. “Wow, we slept in.”

The moment I opened our front door I was tackled and nearly choked.

“Feyre, I’ve missed you so much,” Elain squealed, her arms around my neck like a vise. I grinned and hugged her back. She’s had centuries to adjust to her Fae form and she still underestimated her strength. But she was the High Lady of Spring, and we had both been too busy to see other in months, so I didn’t mention it. She pulled away and skipped into the dining room, her long curls flowing behind her.

Elwyn bounded in next, and I cursed with surprise as he tackled and lifted me off the ground. “Hey, Aunt Feyre!”

“Hey, Elwyn,” I smiled, and then looked to Lucien with wide eyes as he closed the door behind him. “You guys really weren’t exaggerating about his growth spurt.” I glanced up at my nephew, who still had a lanky arm hooked around my shoulders. Last time I had seen him, he was around my height, and now he stood as tall as Lucien, his red hair darkened to more of an auburn. Before he could reply, Elwyn sniffed and dashed into the kitchen.

“Holy shit, Elwyn,” Rhys greeted in surprise.

“Rhys! Little ears!” I scolded.

“It smells amazing in here! I’m starving!”

Lucien stared after him. “We just ate before we came, Elwyn.”

“Yeah, and?”

I laughed while he muttered something under his breath as we followed into the dining room. Elwyn, in my opinion, was even more of a devil child than Cei. While Cei looked like a troublemaker and was one, Elywn had Elain’s sweet brown eyes and bright smile, but all of Lucien’s snark and more. He ruffled Bryce’s hair in greeting and snatched some of his bacon off of his plate. Bryce yelled out a complaint, trying to snatch it back, but his older cousin danced out of his reach. His victory laugh was cut off as he stumbled and a loud meow followed.

“Shit, why is there a cat in here?” Elwyn complained with a mouth full of food as Bryce yelled at him more.

“Elwyn, language,” my sister scolded and smacked him on the arm. Bryce jumped out of his seat and scooped Luna up into his arms.

“You guys got a cat?” Lucien asked me with a side glance.

“Bryce got a cat,” I replied.

He frowned up at his older cousin. “Her name is Luna and you need to apologize.”

Elwyn took another hasty bite of bacon. “Sorry, Luna.”

Rhys and I shared a glance as he stood to put his empty plate in the sink, silently laughing at our son’s protectiveness.

“If I would’ve known you guys were coming so early I could’ve made more food,” Rhia frowned. Lucien walked over to where she sat and gave her a side hug that she returned tightly.

“Don’t worry Rhia, we really did eat before we came. Elwyn is just a bottomless pit.”

Elwyn rolled his eyes and opened his mouth to reply, only to be cut off by our front door opening.

“Dad, it’s unlocked,” Cei called.

“Oh, I guess I could’ve checked.”

Nesta muttered something I didn’t catch. Rhys and I groaned.

“Cassian, will you stop using your son to break into our house?” Rhys scolded as the three of them entered.

Cei walked over to him with a grin. “Dad said it’s not breaking in if you’re expecting us.” He rolled his eyes and pulled him into a side hug.

Cassian laughed, while Nesta groaned as she made her way through the increasingly crowded dining room to Elain, who threw her arms around her neck with a grin. Lucien looked down at Cei with surprise.

“You materialized through the door?”

His eyes lit up. “Yeah, and if you throw something at me, I can make it pass right through me, too.”

Elwyn immediately grabbed a plate off of the table with a devilish grin. My sisters and I all yelled at him, but he had already chucked it at his little cousin.  The plate sailed through him, shattering against the wall. But instead of fading slightly as he went intangible for a moment, he disappeared completely. Rhys jerked and stumbled into the counter. I choked, doubling over as I clutched my heart, Lucien holding me up. The bond tightened, twisted, my mate’s presence in my mind going silent, like a metal door slammed shut between us. Cassian yelled something I couldn’t understand through the sudden _wrongness_ of our bond, and Rhys’ head snapped up to look at him with wide eyes. I stared, unable to comprehend that I was watching my mate move, but unable to feel him.

_Rhysand? Rhys, where are you?_

Then Cei went flying _out_ of Rhys’ body, sliding across the floor until he hit the wall. His parents were at his side immediately, while Rhia and Bryce ran to their father. Elain had grabbed her son’s arm immediately to scold him, the two now watching all of us worriedly. Lucien still held me up because although our bond had bounced back already, my mate’s presence returning, I still shook slightly from being so suddenly cut off from him. Rhys stared down at his shaking nephew with wide eyes, still clutching the counter.

“You possessed me.”

Cassian’s eyes widened. “He what?”

Cei’s face was pale. “I didn’t mean to, I don’t know what happened.”

Rhys stood up straight, frowning. “Have you ever been touching someone while you turn intangible?”

“We’ve had to grab him out of the floor plenty of times,” Nesta snapped, her arms wrapped around her son.

“Both of you?”

Nesta and Cassian shared a glance. Cei frowned and nodded, the color returning to his face. “I don’t think I’ve really slipped through the floor whenever it’s not all three of us, so it’s always been both of them grabbing me out.”

A silence followed. I steadied myself and walked over to my mate’s waiting arms, squeezing him tight around his chest. He sent a calming stroke down our bond. Elain shoved her son towards the mess of broken glass he made. “Now that we sorted that out, go clean up your mess.”

Elwyn stumbled forward and muttered something under his breath that only Lucien heard, giving his son a hard look. He scurried over to the broken plate and hurriedly picked up the pieces. Occasionally I would watch Elwyn with his mischief and good-natured tricks, and wonder sadly if he was what Lucien would have been more like if his brothers hadn’t broken him. Although he was finally whole once more, he surely wasn’t who he used to be, just like myself and the rest of us.

“Are you okay, dad?” Rhia asked.

Rhys smiled down at her over my shoulder. “I’m perfectly fine, darling. What about you, Cei? I threw you out pretty rough.”

He shrugged as he finally stood up, his parents standing with him. “I’m fine, Uncle Rhys. I don’t think I would’ve known how to get out anyways.” He grinned sheepishly.

Yet another unpredictable power we would have to help them figure out and control. A laughable thought occurred to me that I immediately sent to my mate.

_Can you imagine what would have happened if we went through with the idea of sending Rhia and Cei to an Illyrian camp to train?_

He laughed out loud, earning a few questioning glances from the others as the conversations moved on.

_I’m almost positive Devlon would have spent one day with them and then sent them back with a note along the lines of, ‘no fucking way.’_

I smiled at that, selfishly glad that that was the case. These kids were ours, ours to train and teach and love. They were a new, powerful force of nature, and I shuddered to think of when the rest of the world would realize it as well and act on it. Looking around the room at my family, the power of all of us, I knew without a doubt that any enemies who tried would be crushed instantly. And when the children learned how to truly defend themselves, they could shatter the threats themselves. Shatter the world, if they so dared. But our children were not destroyers.

They were dreamers.

* * *

 

RHIANNON

Our parents had left us for hardly two hours before we ran into trouble. Bryce, Cei, Elwyn and myself were upstairs when Luna had come up to Eli, begging for attention. He happily swept the kitten up into his arms, gloating to us about redeeming himself as an animal whisperer. Clouds passed over the sun, casting shadows from our skylight, and the cat clawed her way out of Eli’s embrace and to my room, hiding under my bed. Bryce immediately ran to get her out, the rest of us following, Cei and I laughing at our older cousin as he walked in behind us.

“What’d you do to your floor, Rhia?” Elwyn asked.

I frowned and walked over to him and Cei, away from where Bryce was nearly underneath my bed trying to coax Luna out. Scratches marked my floor, half-hidden from my covers that had fallen last night. My blood went cold. Elwyn kneeled to move the blankets, and I wanted to tell him to stop, but knew that would show my fear. There was a message for me gouged into the wood. The three of us stared, shocked into silence.

“Rhia…” Cei started.

“Rhia, what happened?” Eli whispered, looking up at me with concern in his deep brown eyes.

I shook my head. “I-I don’t know.” Somehow, I had convinced myself that if I didn’t speak the horror out loud, it wouldn’t be true.

“I don’t think she’s coming out,” Bryce called, looking at us from across my bed. Where he kneeled on the other side, the darkness leaking from my open closet covered him. “I think she’s scared of you, Eli.”

His worried brown eyes turned soft as he looked at my little brother. “Sorry Bryce. I guess-”

Bryce let out a piercing shriek as he was dragged to the ground and yanked towards my closet.

“Bryce!” I flung myself over my bed to my brother as he was being pulled by his ankles. I grabbed his wrists and desperately tried to pull him into me. Cei wrapped his arms around my waist as I started to slid with him. Eli threw my closet door wide open, a fireball in his hand as he reared it back to throw.

But when the shadows disappeared due to his fire, so did the weight pulling Bryce. He came flying into Cei and I, the three of us now in a heap on the floor. Eli searched being my hanging clothes before spinning to look at us, his flame dissipating.

“Bryce, Bryce are you all right?” I sat up, keeping his shaking form in my arms. He nodded.

“What was that, Rhia?” Eli questioned as he kneeled next to us.

“I don’t know, Eli!”

He frowned at me, his gaze steady. “Was it the same thing that scratched your floor?”

I met his gaze with wide eyes, still unable to answer. A high meow interrupted, and Luna came slinking out from under my bed, into Bryce’s waiting arms.

“I don’t think it’s Eli that Luna is afraid of, Bryce,” Cei murmured. 

* * *

 

“We need to get your parents.”

“We don’t need to get my parents.”

Eli and I were having a stand-off in my kitchen as he cooked dinner for us, Cei and Bryce waiting in the living room. My older cousin narrowed his eyes.

“There’s something dangerous here, Rhia, and we don’t know what it is.”

“We can handle it. My parents wouldn’t stay the night as Hewn City unless it was really important. We shouldn’t bother them.”

“What about Amren?”

“She’s working on something for them at her apartment.”

Eli sighed and put his head in his hands, leaning back onto the counter. I pressed on.

“That thing can’t be in the light. It only comes out at night and ran when I lit my fireplace and when you held your fire. As long as we keep the house lit up tonight we’ll be okay.”

“…This is an awful idea.”

“We can handle this, Eli.”

“You’re overestimating yourself, cousin. You guys have barely come into your powers. For Mother’s sake, I just used fire for the first time today.”

I crossed my arms and looked up at him with an eyebrow raised, trying to mimic my parents. Shaking his head, he turned back to the stove.

“This is an awful idea.”

Knowing I won, I spun and stalked out of the kitchen. We could handle this. I could handle this. It was the first time we had all been left alone, and I was not about to go running to my parents before night even fell. Eli and I were both future rulers. We could handle one little monster. I fumed at how easily he underestimated us, and I gritted my teeth at this creature for thinking it could mark us.

 _Mine_ , it had gouged into my floor. I was not anyone’s. No being could claim me but myself. And I would prove that to this creature, and everyone else that dared to say otherwise. 

* * *

 

I’d never been afraid to wake up to darkness before. My father had always taught me that darkness could heal as much as it could hurt, that it could comfort and soothe. But this darkness was alive. This darkness was hungry.

By Bryce’s request, I went to sleep next to him in his bed. I don’t know what woke me, but I felt an outside breeze, feeling terror freeze me the moment I opened my eyes.

Bryce’s room was covered in shadows. The floor length windows had opened somehow, the draft blowing out our candles. I sat up, reaching for the bedside table to relight them, but felt nothing. Gathering flames in my palm, I searched the table, but the candles were gone.

Taken.

I leaned over to shake my little brother awake, trying to call his name. My throat was too tight. My flame started to flicker.

_Deep breaths. Steady yourself before you speak._

Controlling my breathing, I continued to shake him. “Bryce. Bryce, get up.”

He groaned, rolling on one side before stretching his wings and blinking up at me. His eyes widened, startled by the low light. Sitting up, he looked at his empty bedside table, and then back at me.

“Rhia?”

“Something opened your window to cause a draft, then took our candles.”

His face paled. Luna mewed at his feet before crawling into his arms. I took another deep breath.

“At least we’ll have an alarm. C’mon, we have lanterns in the basement.”

I took his free hand into my flameless one and led him into the hallway. My throated tightened again when we were greeting by darkness. All the lighted candles we had filled the townhouse with were gone.

“Rhia…” Bryce murmured again.

“Let’s hurry,” I answered, slightly comforted by the calm kitten in his arms. 

I watched every corner as walked, but we made it down to the basement with no issues. We left the door open behind us as creaked down the stairs to our basement, searching the rows of shelves as we reached the bottom.

“Are you sure we have them, Rhia?” Bryce asked after about a minute.

The more I thought about it, the lanterns I was thinking of might in fact be stored at the House of Wind, not here at our townhouse. “Yeah, Bryce.”

Elwyn’s strained voice suddenly echoed through the house from the second floor. “Rhiannon! Bryce!”

Luna leaped howling from Bryce’s arms to hide. I whirled around and nearly screamed at the tall, bony figure standing at the top of the stairs. Bryce did scream. With a hiss, the creature slammed the door shut with my brother and I inside, locking with a loud click.

“No!” I dragged Bryce back up the stairs, desperate to keep my fire alight. My brother and I banged on the bolted door, neither of us strong enough to break it down. We called for our cousins as loud as possible.

There was a low hiss again, and then Eli’s scream, followed by a harsh bang.

“Eli!” Bryce clutched my hand tighter.

Silence. My throat went dry. “Eli?”

His scent hit me through the door, like fresh dew and smoke, before I heard his panting. “Hold on, little ones.” He jiggled the handle, cursing. Cei’s scream rang through the house from the second story, cutting off suddenly before it even echoed. My flame flickered. Eli’s attempts hastened.

“This bolt is stuck-fuck!” A loud thud and more hissing.

Building tears made my throat ache. “Elwyn! Cei!”

Another hiss, and then our townhouse grew thick with silence. Bryce glanced up at me with wide eyes. I swallowed down the thickness in my throat.

“C’mon, we need to find more light, or an exit to outside.”

“What about Eli and Cei?”

“We can’t help them if we’re stuck here.”

I tugged on his arm and led him back downstairs. Around the corner, the basement widened and a furnace sat in the wall. We hurried to it, throwing it open and I lit the little bit of wood that was inside. We searched for any paper nearby and fed it to the flames. Once it steadied, Bryce sat in front of it. I took a deep breath.

“All right, stay here. I’m going to go look for an outside door.”

Bryce shot up from his seat. “Wait, what? What if she comes back?”

I was taken aback by his pronoun use for the creature. “It can’t come into the light. Just keep feeding the fire. I won’t be gone long.”

“She’s smarter than that. She finds ways around that.”

I blinked. “Just-just stay here, okay? I’ll be right back.”

I turned to go down the other hallway, feeling shaken from the seriousness of his voice. My throat was still tight as I searched around the corner, my flame flickered as I worried for my cousins. Eli had been right. We should’ve gotten my parents. I thought we could handle this, I thought I was strong enough, but I got us trapped down here, I couldn’t winnow us out, and my cousins could be hurt-or worse. The thought barreled into me full-force suddenly, choking the air from my lungs, and my flame. I bit back a scream and tried to spark it again, but now my fear made everything so heavy. The hissing started again, and this time as I stood frozen like a hunted doe, I understood every word.

 _Mine_ , it hissed. _Princess. Spirit-walker. Beast. Wild one._

Slowly, I reached and felt for one of the weapons I had seen on the wall, my hands trembling. I couldn’t force my fear down enough to control my magic. The creature was stalking around me, some deep instinct inside me recognizing it as something very old, something to run from.

_Mine. Children of the Made. Mine._

I wrapped my hands around the hilt of a large broadsword just as it leapt. The sword was way too large for me, so as I swung I used momentum more than anything. It screeched as I sliced into it, but the blade sunk as if I hat hid mud instead of a living creature. I lost my grip on the sword and as I stumbled back, the thing swerved behind me, yanking a fistful of my hair and slamming my head into a concrete wall. My vision swam as I heard and felt the dull crack. The creature threw me to the ground. I groaned as I fell, earning a hard kick to the ribs that sounded with another crack. Not even able to bring myself to gasp as the thing left out a satisfied hiss that almost sound like a hideous laugh, and then its presence left me.

Every breath was another wave of stabbing pain the made my vision blur. I blinked to clear it, keeping my breaths shallow. I clenched my fists to prepare myself as I shakily brought myself to my feet. For Bryce. For my cousins. I used the shelves to haul myself up, feeling for a dagger before leaving.

“Rhia!” Bryce shrieked.

I weakly croaked his name in return as terror filled me and felt my way towards him the best I could with my blurry vision. The room brightened significantly as he screamed again-and heated. I stumbled into the open area where I left him.

“Bryce?” Still half in darkness as I walked, the creature slashed my arm as it disappeared past me, into the shadows. I screamed, my little brother scrambling to me to hold me up. Flames licked across the shelves and papers all around us. Catching my wide-eyed glance, he swallowed.

“I didn’t mean to-she grabbed me and I was just trying to get away-” he broke into a coughing fit from the smoke.

“We need to, we…” I coughed as well, black dancing around the edges of my vision. Bryce did his best to keep me up, watching me with wide, worried blue eyes.

I didn’t know what we needed to do, actually.

I couldn’t save us. My cousins couldn’t save us. I was too weak, too stupid, and my brother and I were going to die because of it.

We need the Inner Circle. We needed our mom and dad.

 _Help_ , I whispered in my mind, as if they could hear us all the way in Hewn City.

 _Mommy, daddy. Please, help._  


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This may or may not be the last chapter of the kids at this age. I'm debating on doing a time-skip after this chapter. We'll see. In the meantime, hang out with me on tumblr! I'm books-cats-and-coffee :)

RHYSAND

When trying to prepare myself to be a father, I had attempted to compare it to being a High Lord. I had already sacrificed so much of myself for my people, doing so for my children couldn’t be much different. I quickly learned how wrong those thoughts were.

The sacrifices I had made for my court were done with love, yes, but it was a learned love from years of duty that had been hammered into me as I watched my father’s rule before mine. But my children, the two of them were so, so precious and so, so rare. Half of myself and half of my mate, protecting and loving them went so much deeper than duty, it was a primal instinct that I felt rattle me the moment I learned Feyre carried them in her.

So it was an effort to keep my powers contained when Amren winnowed to our palace over Hewn City with a beaten Elwyn clinging to her. My Inner Circle and I-minus Azriel-were in the war room in my palace above the city. We had all retired to bed earlier in the day to have more energy at night, when we would need to track the spikes of magic that had been occurring. Azriel was scouting around the city, keeping an eye out for anything suspicious.

Elwyn explained in a rush that there was a monster and Rhia and Bryce were locked up and he couldn’t find Cei and fire didn’t help because the creature disappeared in the light before the flame could hit it-

Amren cut off his rambling by putting a finger to his mouth and regarded the rest of us with her intense grey eyes, baring her teeth. “We need Feyre’s glow.”

The room grew thick with angry, waiting power as we all stood to leave. Mor regretfully added that she probably needed to stay behind, since Azriel was not back and we did still need to track the energy after all. After that quick discussion, we left for the townhouse.

It smelt quickly of smoke and fear, but was silent. As we stood in front of the house, Feyre stood tall and strong, but I felt her anger and fear ripple down our bond. I sent my strength back to her as I pushed down my own similar feelings. Cassian’s siphons were glowing bright red, and Nesta let out a low snarl.

“Rhia and Bryce are in the basement,” Elwyn explained. “I-I don’t know what happened to Cei. His scent disappeared, he was upstairs and then he screamed and-”

Amren gripped his wrist to silence him as Nesta and Cassian shared a glance that was made of pure, primal fury. Feyre led the way inside.

“Stay outside, Elwyn,” I ordered over my shoulder.

“Wait, what? But-”

Amren shushed him again, staying by his side. “Stay, wild one.”

Nesta and Cassian darted upstairs in an immediate search for their son. I ran to the basement door with Feyre by my side. Smoke billowed out from under the door, its lock bent out of place.

“Rhiannon? Bryce?” Feyre called. There was a muffled response.

I jiggled the handle for a moment before growling and shoving the door open with my shoulder. A burst of heat blasted us. Rhia and Bryce were at the bottom of the stairs, our son holding his sister up the best he could. The scent of her blood hit us, Feyre snarling at it and the sight of our half-conscious daughter.

Nesta yelled Cassian’s name from upstairs. Feyre and I looked up right as he was thrown from the second-story landing and into the wall.

“Bitch,” he coughed from a heap on the ground.

A tall, bony figure stood where he had been thrown, its glowing eyes locked on Feyre and I. My mate narrowed her eyes and turned to throw discs of light at the creature, but it quickly disappeared with a hiss before they got close. The kids were only halfway up the stairs, limping along.

“Dad?” Rhia croaked.

“It’s all right, darling. We’re here.” It was an effort to make my words to her sound soothing when my blood boiled with rage.

“Rhys!” Ferye screamed.

Before I could blink, I was tackled to the ground, the creature straddling me and slashing at my chest with its long nails. I gripped its wrists to force it away from me, earning a hiss. The strength of it surprised me, and as its glowing eyes stared down, some deep, forgotten instinct tried to tell me to _run, run away from the monster, hide_. I forced the urge down with a growl.

Feyre threw more light at it, but the thing again saw it coming and disappeared.

“How the fuck do I hit this thing?” She growled, her back now to the door our children finally made it through.

“She knows how to get past her weakness, mom,” Bryce answered. “You have to outsmart her.”

Ferye and I shared a glance as I got back on my feet and Nesta came back downstairs, no Cei in sight. The monster reappeared, threw Feyre into Cassian-the two closest to the children-and then yanked Rhia away from Bryce.  I lunged after her, unable to restraint my darkness any longer at the sight of the creature wrapping its bloody nails around my daughter’s neck. Light flared in Feyre’s hands as she stood with Cassian. The thing whipped its glowing gaze to my mate and tightened its hold on Rhia, who whimpered as a thin trail of blood ran down her neck. I froze next to Bryce and forced down the tremors of rage that threatened to consume me. Against this thing, my High Lord abilities were useless.

_Most powerful fucking High Lord and I can’t save my thirteen-year old daughter-_

“Children of the Made, mine. First pick, mine. Wild One, gone. Beast, gone-” The creature’s gaze snapped to Bryce, who flinched away. I threw my arm in front of him.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Nesta shrieked. “What is this thing, Rhysand?” I gritted my teeth, having no answer for her.

It squeezed Rhiannon again and took a long sniff of her hair. She pressed her lips into a thin line as she tried to stay conscious. My heart felt as if it were being carved out at the sight. Feyre’s panic trembled through our bond. “Princess, yes. Princess will do.”

It twisted its hands to either snap her neck or slit her throat, I didn’t know, but Feyre screamed and Bryce grabbed my hand and it was everything I could do to not release my control completely and let everything around us succumb to the darkness I felt-

And the monster jerked back, stumbling awkwardly as it released my daughter. A strangled groan came from it. “ _Rhia_ …”

Cassian put the pieces together moments before the rest of us. “Cei possessed a fucking _demon_!”

I turned all my power to the demon now and clawed into its mangled thoughts to find Cei’s presence, now at the front of its mind, and yanked at it with everything I had. My nephew materialized and went sliding across the floor towards Nesta, who immediately knelt and gathered his trembling body into her arms. Rhia came stumbling into my own arms, bleeding profusely. The monster still struggled to get its footing. Feyre tackled it to the ground with a roar.

It pushed against her with desperate hiss, but my mate shoved it underneath her on the floor, her knee digging into its abdomen and her hands wrapped around its windpipe to crush it. It kicked underneath her with all its might, and with a hiss of her own Feyre released a soft glow contained in her skin like a lampshade. Not enough to dissipate the creature, but not enough to harm it. The glow traveled under her skin, leaking into the creature. It began to shriek.

“The children are _ours_ ,” she growled, and let her light burst. The creature let out a guttural, animalistic scream before disintegrating to dust underneath her.

I sent nothing but love and relief down the bond to her as she stood. Feyre had always done a similar, less violent gesture with her light to myself or the children when she glowed with bliss and wished to share it with those she love. For her to also think of it as a weapon…my huntress with an artist’s soul indeed.

Feyre then darted downstairs to take care of the fire. Elwyn came running inside with Amren and a healer right behind him. I lifted my daughter in my arms to carry her to a couch to be properly taken care of as she still fought to stay awake. Bryce clung to me as I walked, his eyes never leaving his sister. Cassian took Cei from Nesta to help lead him into the sitting room as well. He was still very pale and clung to his father. There was a calm silence as the healer worked. Rhia needed the most attention, as she very well could have bled out if we had arrived later. Bryce had some bad gashes on his ankles and Amren had already gotten Elywn patched up while they had stayed outside. Feyre came back in now smelling of smoke just as the healer made their leave.

Elwyn broke the silence first. “So, why’d you possess a demon, Cei?”

Cei blinked, still very pale where he sat on the floor in between his parents. “I didn’t mean to. When you ran downstairs to help Rhia and Bryce it grabbed me from behind. I was just trying to get away, but instead…” Trembling, he ran to the open window to stick his head out and throw up. Nesta followed to rub circles down his back, while Cassian stood to get him a drink. Rhia pressed her lips together where she was curled up in the corner of the couch. Bryce was curled up next to her; Feyre perched on the arm of it while I sat on the floor.

“If you saw this thing earlier today, like Elwyn explained,” Feyre began, looking between our daughter and her older cousin. “Why didn’t you get us sooner?”

“I’m sorry,” Rhia choked out. “Eli told me we should, but I just thought…”

"Deep breaths, darling," I murmured to her as she trailed off.

“Yeah, well, that’s the last time I listen to my little cousin,” Elwyn replied with a half grin.

She frowned at him, some of her color returning to her cheeks. “You’re only two years older than me.”

“I don’t care how old any of you are,” I explained, trying to keep my voice even. Cei had taken a seat next to Bryce with his glass now in his hands. I met each of their four gazes before I continued. “If you feel threatened, or unsafe, you come find one of us. Or Mor, or Az, or Lucien or Elain. No matter where we are, or what the situation is. Understand?”

They all nodded with pale faces, except Bryce, who stared at his hands.

“It wouldn’t have mattered with her,” he whispered.

Feyre blinked. “Bryce?”

“How long was she watching you, little one?” Amren questioned, moving across the room to him. He looked up at her with wide eyes.

“Um, a while.”

“Bryce, baby, why didn’t you say anything?” Feyre went around me to kneel in front of him, taking his small hands in hers. She gazed up at him with glistening blue-grey eyes that were a mirror to his own.

“I thought she was just from my nightmares. So I started trying to stay awake, but she showed up in my room anyways. I don’t know if she started first, or if the nightmares did, but whenever I ran to our room she never followed, and I only saw her at night. So I thought I just made her up. And she talked to me plenty, but she never touched me before tonight.”

“Do you know what it was, Amren?” I asked. Her grey eyes seemed to glow.

“Something very, very old, that should be long dead and forgotten. I can’t say for certain what stirred it.” As she spoke, she met my gaze evenly. Not in front of the children, she wouldn’t say, at least.

“Well whatever she was, she’s dead now,” Feyre spat, and then softly kissed our son’s hands. “So no more nightmares.”

Bryce glanced over at his sister, then me, and then smiled back at his mother.

“No more nightmares,” he agreed.

* * *

 

BRYCE

What counted as a nightmare, anyways? No one ever really said. Whatever they were, I didn’t think they would ever go away. But I didn’t want mom to be sad, either.

Sometimes I get hurt in my dreams. Sometimes I don’t. The ones where I get hurt were the nightmares, I guess. But when I wake up I’m okay. It’s the same thing when I’m awake. Some days I get hurt, some days I don’t. I didn’t know what made nightmares so bad. At least I always know I’ll wake up.

Every dream starts the same. The gliding feeling goes all through me, reminding me of whenever my parents and Rhia and me fly over our city. Then I open my eyes, and I’m standing in my room. In my dreams, any room that I’m in is really foggy, and if I try to focus on where I’m at my head hurts. So I stopped trying. The people are clear though. I always start in my room, and I can look over and see myself asleep in bed. If I touch the me that’s in bed, I always wake up. But I usually wanna walk around so I can get plenty of rest.

If I go in Rhia’s room, or mom and dad’s room, they’ll be there asleep too. But nothing happens when I touch them. We all stay asleep. I’m just in my dream. No one’s ever in the house that isn’t there when I wake up. So if anyone sleeps over, I see them too.

Outside is different. There’s always lots of new people outside the house. Some of them are nice, and they talk with me and share stories. A lot of them don’t know their names, but I wals ask and tell them mine to be polite. A lot of them just started calling me spirit-walker, for some reason. Some of them don’t like me, and they try to hurt me. Whenever I get hurt, that’s how I know it’s a nightmare, so as soon as I can I run home and touch the sleeping me and wake up. Then I run to mom and dad’s room to wake them up, just to double check. But I guess that worries them when I have nightmares. So I won’t do that anymore.

Whenever someone that’s already awake tries to wake me up, I always feel a tug in my chest. When that happens, I always hurry home so they don’t worry. And I never go too far from home, in case I get lost. But I know my way around Velaris like the back of my hand, so I can walk pretty far.

I wasn’t sure if this dream would be a nightmare or not. I hoped not, since I just told mom before I went to bed that I wouldn’t have any. So far, everyone outside had been really nice. I looked over, past the mountains and got curious. Before I went to bed, mom and dad said that Aunt Mor and Uncle Az were still at Hewn City for the night, but they knew everything was okay now. I hadn’t seen them all day though, so I wanted to check on them.

I don’t get tired in my dreams, since I’m already asleep. So I let my wings out and flew where Rhia said the other city was. I don’t know how long it took me to get there. I didn’t feel a tug yet, so it couldn’t have been that long. There’s nothing to tell time with in my dreams. The sky is always just as foggy and hard to focus on as all the other surroundings, so I couldn’t even tell if it was night or day.

Once I got in the city, I figured out that tonight was a nightmare night.

I wasn’t sure where to go, so I tried asking people around if they knew where the Inner Circle stayed when they visited. All the people around me had ignored me at first, but when I mentioned my family they got angry.

One man grabbed me from behind and held me up in a chokehold. It was always hard to tell what they were saying when they got angry, too. My eyes watered as I tried to kick the man, but he was a lot bigger than me. I always tried to remind myself that I wouldn’t be hurt when I woke up, but it still hurt now.

I couldn’t breathe anymore, and I didn’t know what would happen when I passed out if I was in a dream. It had never happened before. Someone else punched my stomach, making me cough out the little air I had left. I heard laughing, and I really couldn’t even see people anymore.  Everything was getting dark.

But then, a woman’s voice yelled at the angry fey hurting me and they dropped me and ran, shouting apologies at the woman. I coughed where I lay on the hard ground now, trying to take deep breaths so the black would go away from my eyes. The woman rested a hand on my back. Her voice was soothing now.

“Are you all right, darling?”

She helped me stand up and kept one hand in mine. I took another deep breath for good measure and then smiled up at her. Maybe tonight wouldn’t be a nightmare night.

“I am now. Thank you for helping me.”

“Oh, my pleasure, really.” She rested her other hand in my hair.

“I’m Bryce!” I grinned. “What’s your name?”

The woman grinned back, throwing her red hair over her shoulder.

“I’m Amarantha.”

 


	4. Chapter 4

RHIANNON

I loved my cousins more than myself, but sometimes, they were the biggest pricks in all of Prythian.

Just because Cei had a better aim than I did, didn’t mean he had to be so arrogant about it. Amren always did say that being entitled and stubborn ran in our family. We were training on the rooftop of the House of Wind with Amren “watching” us, but since it was just target practice she was lounging on the side of the rooftop and picking at her nails while making sure Cei and I didn’t beat each other up too much. Which really was what Bryce did most of the time.

Our parents and the whole rest of the Inner Circle were in some meeting with one of the courts. I hadn’t been given a lot of details, mostly because my parents assured me that it was only a routine trade deal meeting and nothing I had to bother myself with knowing every detail. I trusted them, because now that I was nineteen they filled me in on plenty of the political happenings that they thought I needed to know, more so than when I was a baby and always dragged Cei and Bryce into eavesdropping with me.

Also due to the aftermath of when Cei and I finally learned to winnow and we visited the Court of Nightmares with Bryce in tow. We didn’t get very far into the city due to Bryce running into a certain Shadowsinger. Once we returned to Velaris, I was grounded and wasn’t allowed to be left alone for months, and my parents refused to fill me in on the slightest plan or news for the same amount of time. They hadn’t needed to raise their voices at me once or lock me away completely, knowing how ashamed and disappointed they were in me stung more than yelling or any physical punishment ever could.

At the same time, I couldn’t regret that trip one bit as I looked back on it. If we hadn’t gone, we wouldn’t have found the three that now completed our own circle.

Cei glanced over at the off-center scorch marks on my target and flashed a taunting grin. “What, are you doing it with your eyes closed?”

I snarled. On the other side of him, Daere cackled. “You got a death wish today, Cei?”

Daere and her twin brother Cadell were two Illyrians that now stayed here with us in Velaris. They helped us that day when I tried to winnow us out of the Court of Nightmares in a panic, but missed terribly and ended up at in Illyrian camp. A set of Illyrians tried to rough us up, not recognizing any of us, but the twins showed up to help us out. Uncle Cassian had been keeping an eye on them as it turned out, because they were the youngest Illyrians to ever get through the Blood Rite. The commander of their camp had wanted to clip Daere’s wings for a lord that wanted to take her, even though she was one of the best in the camp. The twins threw themselves into the Blood Rite at sixteen and made it out, so Uncle Cassian forbad the lords to clip her wings. They weren’t supposed to do any wing clipping, but my parents were still trying to weed out the worst of the war lords.

After they helped us, I winnowed us all back to Velaris and convinced my parents that I trusted these three enough to bring them to our City of Starlight.

“Like the princess can’t afford to be knocked down a few notches,” Andreas called back from the other side of Bryce.

I take back my earlier comment. Andreas took the crown for being the biggest prick. He was the Shadowsinger that Bryce had ran into and tried to befriend when we visited the Court of Nightmares. Andreas was an orphaned beggar, who then tried to take advantage of my little brother and rob him. When I tried to winnow Bryce and Cei away, I accidently took Andreas with us. I winnowed twice actually. The first time something…strange happened. We ended up at a camp that seemed terribly outdated, and when we were attacked Andreas saved my life but was wounded terribly. I winnowed again, and that was when we ended up at the camp where the twins had been living.

My parents had known his father, from what I could tell when I overheard them trying to figure out what to do with the boy after he healed. But Aunt Mor took one look at him with his Shadowsinger abilities and the longing way he gazed out his window up at the stars, and declared that she and Azriel would be taking care of him. That was all three years ago now. He became unwaveringly loyal to my parents and the Inner Circle, but he was still a prick.

“I will throw you off the roof, Andreas,” I snapped. He muttered something under his breath that made Bryce laugh. Traitor.

A soft breeze brushed my wings, making me shudder and long to join the wind rather than work on my shitty aim with my powers. We were in the heat of summer, and while it didn’t get unbearably hot in Velaris, it was enough to make us train in loose fitting gear rather than our usual Illyrian gear.

“Don’t worry, Andreas. There’s another four of us that can fly. If Rhia loses her temper someone’s bound to catch you,” Bryce added with a soft smile. He stretched his own wings slightly for emphasis.

“That’s our baby Bryce,” Cadell laughed. “Always the mercy to Rhia’s wrath.”

I summoned a dagger to my hand chucked it, hitting a bull’s-eye dead on to satisfy my pride at missing with my flames.

“All of you are gonna need his mercy if you don’t stop ganging up on me,” I muttered.

Andreas rolled his eyes as he walked past me to get a drink, pulling his light blonde hair back into a ponytail, his shadows staying curled around his pointed ears. Even with his shadows, it was easy for anyone to tell that he wasn’t from the Night Court, especially when he was always around one of us. The twins both had dark, Illyrian complexions with dark hair and eyes to match. Bryce’s skin had tanned closer to my tone as he got older, but his freckles still stood out across his cheekbones. Andreas looked more Spring Court than anything with his light golden skin, but he never seemed to mind standing out, or noticed more likely.

“Let me know if you need me to stand still when you throw your fire at me,” Cei taunted. Andreas choked on his water.

“Dodge this, prick!” Summoning another dagger, I tossed it at his shoulder. Grinning, he flashed intangible to let it sail right through him. The twins howled and ducked as it sailed over them-

Right into my parents. My mom threw up a shield of wind to block it, and it clattered to the ground in front of them. The twins shared a glance, and Cei turned away from them while covering his mouth to hide his shit-eating grin. My arm was still out-stretched from my throw. I pulled it back in and smiled.

“Hello, mom and dad. How was the meeting?”

“Hello, darling. Amren, good to see that you were keeping a close eye on the children,” my dad drawled.

Amren bared her teeth at him from her spot on the side of the roof. “None of them are dead, are they, High Lord?”

The rest of the Inner Circle landed gently behind my parents. Aunt Mor raised an eyebrow when Uncle Azriel set her down. She and my parents were dressed in dark, regal clothes still, while the other three were dressed in gear, always looking like the warriors they were.

“Is Rhia trying to kill Cei again?”

I turned on my heel, my long ponytail swinging as I went to get a drink at the table Andreas was still leaning against.

“Him and Andreas,” I answered, flashing a deadly grin.

He rolled his eyes as he took another sip. “Don’t be such a drama queen, princess. It’s unbecoming.”

“Don’t be such a prick, street rat. Constantly scowling really brings down that pretty face of yours.”

He leaned his arm on the table. “You think my face is pretty?”

I turned my back to him and instead watched as Amren sauntered over to my parents to get an update on what happened at their meeting. “Pretty stupid.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw one of his shadows shoot up and flicker at his ear. He blinked, and then set his drink back down to go back to his target, summoning his bow and quiver as he did so.

“Cei, didn’t I say to work on your aim more?” Uncle Cassian called over, frowning at his target.

Cei blanched and gestured to his target, his marks the most condensed at the center than the rest of ours. Except now that Andreas was firing his arrows, which never missed when he had his shadows whispering the most micro adjustments in his ears.

“With weapons,” Aunt Nesta corrected.

His hazel eyes iced over instantly, looking exactly like his mom, even with the different coloring. He summoned his own knife and took a steadying breath before tossing it. It _thunked_ into the upper left of the target.

“Wow, Cei,” I taunted. “Was that with your eyes closed, too?”

He sent me a crude gesture over his shoulder as the twins snickered. My parents shared an amused glance.

“Rhia, dear,” my mom teased. “No taunting your cousin unless you’re perfect.”

I sauntered over to my own target. “I am pretty close.”

Andreas muttered something that made Bryce let out another light laugh.

“Speak up for once, street rat,” I jeered, throwing more flames at my target. They hit slightly better.

“Don’t stick your nose where it doesn’t belong, princess. I’m just having a wonderful conversation with baby Bryce.”

Bryce tried and failed to hide his smile as he threw a dagger of ice into the center of his target. How my little brother was four years younger than me but was a better aim, I didn’t understand.

The conversation the Inner Circle was having had slowed to a halt. My dad snapped his fingers, and our targets disappeared.

“That’s enough for today,” he cut in. We all shared glances at our early dismissal.

“Lunch is inside,” mom added.

Not a second later, the twins and Cei were dashing inside and down the stairs to the dining room. The rest of us followed in a much calmer manner.

My dad held out a hand to me as I passed him. “Rhia, stay for minute.”

I paused, my parents waiting until it was just the three of us on the roof to speak. Dad pulled me into a hug and kissed the top of my head.

“How are you, darling? We didn’t see you this morning before we left.”

I stepped out of his arms and smiled sheepishly. “Oh, sorry. I was up late last night.”

Thankfully, they didn’t ask for details. They both hummed thoughtfully as they shared a glance. They had brought their wings out already now that they were home, but hadn’t glamoured away the extra darkness that rolled off of them or the crown of stars in their hair. I should have been use to my parents’ effortless power by now, when I had so much of it as well, but I wasn’t sure if I ever would be.

“We need you to take care of something for us tonight,” dad started.

“You, Bryce and the others,” mom added.

I raised an eyebrow. “What kind of something?”

“It includes embarrassing the Autumn Court.”

I grinned. “Go on.”

They gave me a matching smirk as they caught me up on what I would need to know for tonight.


	5. Chapter 5

RHIANNON

“Maybe we should just pretend you’re settling down in a nice relationship with someone from our own court so all these thirsty-ass males will stop circling you,” Cei suggested as he cleaned his blade.

I shrugged, rolling drops of water around my knuckles as I leaned against a tree trunk. “We could. But then I wouldn’t get to humiliate them when I turn them down.”

Cei snorted, and Bryce let out a light laugh. My cousin and I looked to him and then shared a smirking glance.

“What about you, baby Bryce?” Cei asked.

He blinked. “What about me?”

“Any cute fae strike your fancy?” I added.

“No, why?”

Cei stood and stalked over to him. “Not even any…cute Summer fae?”

“If you’re talking about Sylvia, we’re just friends.”

My cousin gave me a knowing glance over his shoulder. Soon to be sixteen, Bryce was already taller than me, but his face still had roundness to it and his limbs still were more gangly than lean to show his young age. Even so, he had obliviously begun collecting admirers from all around with his effortless politeness and grace. The cutest was the daughter of the High Lord of Summer. She was sweet, around Bryce’s age, and her court was one of the closest to ours in terms of friendliness.

I failed to hear Cei’s response when a rogue shadow slithered across the grass and up onto my wrist. The chilly, slick texture of it still made me shiver. I reached out across the forest to find Andreas, a sliver in his mind’s shield there just for me.

 _The royal pain-in-the-ass_ _is waiting_ , he thought to me.

 _Ready for a show?_ I sent back.

 _With you around, everything is a show, princess_.

I laughed out loud, and the shadow went slinking back to its master. Cei and Bryce looked to me curiously.

“Let’s go, boys. Cei, grab your sword. Bryce, try to look intimidating.”

I stood, brushing any leaves from the forest ground off of my outfit. I had chosen a formal two-piece made of dark, shimmery material. The skirt was long and flowing, and the top cut-off at the bottom to show my midriff and had silk straps to wrap around the back of my neck. I had thought about wearing a belt to hold weapons, but figured that the outfit showed off enough of my muscle not to bother. Cei had his wings out and his gear on while Bryce and I kept ours away, and my little brother stuck his hands in the pockets of his dark tunic as we walked, keeping his expression vaguely bored.

We made our way to the meeting point at the southern end of the woods that were a part of the neutral territory in Prythian. My parents had been wary when I chose this as our place to meet, but I didn’t want any Autumn Court getting to enter in Night, even if it was just the House of Mist or some other palace my family owned. And seeing how short I knew this meeting was going to be, I didn’t want to go visit Autumn. As long as we returned before dark, we would be fine. Insisting this as my choice also made it likely that Alroy wouldn’t meet with me at all, but alas, he still accepted.

Alroy was the youngest son of the High Lord of Autumn. He was a good bit older than me, but still fairly young by fae standards. Including Uncle Lucien, there were four total sons of Autumn, after some had been killed in Court skirmishes or in the war against Hybern nearly five hundred years ago now.

As the three of us approached Alroy and his two sentries from Autumn, I supposed he wasn’t bad-looking. His red hair was brushed back and curled around his ears, and his skin lightly tanned. He wore a russet tunic, looking like nothing else but the arrogant, scheming fae he was raised to be.

Although, I suppose that’s the same way I let myself be portrayed outside of Velaris.  

Alroy gave me a slow grin and inclined his head. “Hello, Princess Rhiannon.”

“Prince Alroy.” I didn’t incline my head to him, just held my hand out for him to kiss it, as if I were the least bit interested in him.

His hand as he took mine to place a kiss on my knuckles was smooth and soft compared to mine or Bryce’s calloused, trained ones. To some, that could be appealing, it definitely meant that he didn’t have to work or fight, and neither would anyone by his side. But I was a warrior and future High Lady; I would loathe to have someone by my side that wouldn’t go to battle for their court or their loved ones.

I waited for him to start the conversation after he released my hand.

“Interesting choice of companions,” he said finally, his cool composure surprisingly not cracking with my lack of interest.

I raised an eyebrow. Cei crossed his arms.

“How do you mean?”

He shrugged. “It’s simply interesting that you would have both your cousin and your brother at your side, and only them. I’m assuming these two count as the two companions with both agreed to bring?”

“Are you implying that I didn’t follow what we agreed?”

 _Andreas,_ I nudged my thoughts against his shield. _Are you three hidden?_

 _Duh_ , he scoffed back. _I’m a Shadowsinger, for Cauldron’s sake, princess_.

“Of course not,” he replied, clasping his hands behind him as Cei shifted a bit closer to me. “These woods are just such an unpredictable area for your High Lord and Lady to allow their young bloodline to travel alone in.”

“These two are just as powerful as any guards you could bring alongside yourself,” I retorted with a predator’s smile. “Besides, these woods pose no threat as long as you respect them.”

Alroy sent a mirroring smile back. “I suppose.”

The sun was already starting to dip close to the trees. This meeting needed to end soon, and I still wanted to see this ass squirm.

I felt Andreas open his shields wide for me to enter. _Princess_.

_What’s wrong?_

I glanced down at my nails and pretended to pick dirt out from under them. “And what is your reasoning for wanting this meeting, Alroy?”

_Something’s headed your way. A few somethings, actually._

The sharp edges of his smile turned playful. “I’m sure your parents have already told you, Rhiannon. Do you want to make me say it slow?”

_What are they?_

I rolled my shoulders back. “Making men say what I want to hear is a talent of mine.”

 _I don’t know. The shadows won’t go near them. The twins are trying to hold them off. You need to get out of there, now_.

I narrowed my eyes and listened for them, but the forest had gone completely silent.

“Alroy. Did you bring anything else with you to this forest?”

Any of my formalities went out the window. Bryce stiffened at my side, his bored expression slipping as his gaze snapped to the tree-line behind Alroy and his sentries.

He raised an eyebrow. “No, Rhiannon. I kept to what we agreed. Why do you ask?”

I didn’t have time to answer before a cold, familiar chill washed over me and four creatures leapt into the clearing. Two of them pounced right onto the hulking guards at Alroy’s sides. They didn’t have time to scream before their spines were ripped out of their backs.

The creatures were scentless, and had a cold, unnatural aura covering them, sending me back, back into my memories from when I was thirteen. I knew my cousin and brother were experiencing the same feeling, causing all three of us to freeze until Alroy’s fire brought us back into action. The Autumn Prince threw waves of fire towards the creatures, and Cei drew his broadsword as one bounded towards him. They were dark, hunched four-legged creatures with claws the length of my forearm and long jaws with short, sharp teeth. They dripped thick, greasy ichor as they circled the clearing and attacked.

I deflected the one that leapt towards me with a wall of hard air to give myself time to summon my blade. When it leapt again, I let it come and swung my blade up in an arc, only to have the creature parry in mid-air with its claws. I stumbled for a moment at the force of it as it landed next to me. Its thin nostrils flared as it snapped its jaw at me. The sound of its hissing dragged more dark memories from my mind, and I swung my sword at it again to shut it up. It parried again and twisted its hands to lock my sword in its claws. With a growl, I shot hot flames at its face with one hand. It screeched and fell back, thrashing about to put out the flames.

There were two additional screeches that grated my ears as my enemy scrambled away. Alroy had successfully disintegrated his creature, while Cei had beheaded his. Bryce was having about as much luck as I was, but chose to use ice against the monster rather than flames. The demon finally batted down the flames on its face just in time to watch Alroy’s enemy finish burning away into ash. Its milky eyes traveled to a panting Alroy, and then it pounced him, claws flashing.

“Watch it!” I called out. The Autumn Prince turned, his hands aflame, but the demon had already sunk its long claws into his abdomen. Its hiss froze me again. _Useless fae_.

Alroy screamed as he collapsed to the ground. I whipped to look to my cousin, but he only narrowed his eyes as he watched. Gritting my teeth, I winnowed over to the fallen fae just as the monster reared back to slash at his chest again. Bracing two hands on the hilt of my blade, I sliced through its neck. Its head went tumbling to the ground, and I kicked its body off of a bleeding but conscious Alroy.

I turned to give Cei a glare over my shoulder, only to be stunned into silence as the beheaded body that Cei had left evaporated into a dark mist.

I hadn’t realized that the creature Bryce had been fighting paused. My brother called my name, and I turned to see its milky white eyes locked on me. Cei was at my side in an instant.

Daere and Cadell burst into opposite ends of the clearing, covered in dirt and blood-both red and black. Daere was in the last creature’s line of sight, and it winnowed before anyone could speak.

It winnowed and tackled Daere into a tree, one set of claws keeping her trapped, the other sailing down and aiming for her throat. Cadell let out a guttural scream that made my heart shatter.

“ _Ne_.”

The creature froze. With wide eyes, I stared at the source of the low hissing: my baby brother. He still had his dual blades drawn, but they were low at his sides as he stalked past Cei and I, closer to where the demon had Daere. Her dark complexion paled as she stayed trapped against the tree, her short hair falling in her wide eyes. Bryce continued to speak in a series of hissing and clicks. It was easier to recognize a separation of words in his voice, but still impossible to understand.

Watching his tall form stop near the creature, hearing him speak whatever language the demons shared, it threw me farther into the memories I had been trying to ignore.

It reminded me of that night when we thought we were safe, when my brother had been gone for weeks and our dad had to go into the unknown to save him. It was eerily similar to another image that haunted my nightmares more than I would like to admit. Those unnatural words coming from my father’s mouth-and then, and then, so much blood.

I almost lost my entire family that night. Bryce was still speaking the language, and I willed myself to move, to make him snap out of it, but couldn’t. Weak. I was so weak.

He held the demon’s gaze evenly. My heart leapt into my throat, coated with fear as I watched on the other side of the clearing. Bryce had his shields set tight like cement around his mind. His expression was still carefully blank, but there was something else in his gaze that frightened me-something dark.

“ _Dođi meni_.”

The creature crawled away from Daere and towards my little brother.

Bryce didn’t flinch as the thing leapt for his neck.

It had an arrow through its throat before I had a chance to scream for him, splattering its black blood onto Bryce before falling to the ground in a twitching heap.

Andreas stood next to Daere with his bow now at his side. Once the creature ceased moving he met my gaze, and I sent him every ounce of gratitude in my body for saving my baby brother when I was too paralyzed by my memories to do so.

Bryce wiped the blood off of his face with his hands and stared down at the liquid for a moment. He took a shuddering breath and stumbled back, his eyes wide. Seeing him back to normal snapped everyone into action. Andreas turned to assess the clearing, Cadell bolted over to his twin to help her stand, and Cei ran to Bryce to calm him.

While I was still stupidly frozen, trying to rid the sound of Bryce murmuring that language from my mind. What a leader I was. I shook my head and took a deep breath, just as the final demon dissolved into thin air.

But the forest was still eerily silent, and the chill in the air still gave me the feeling of something breathing down my neck.

Andreas’ shadows were near frantic by his ears as they whispered to him, like he was standing near an open fire. His green eyes narrowed, and he kept his bow drawn and aimed towards were the demons had burst out and attacked.

“There’s even more of those bastards coming fast. We need to get out of here, now.”

I cursed and shared a glance with Cei as we both tried to come up with the best option for our group. We were bloody, unprepared, and tired. On a good day, we were still a good two jumps away from the Night Court if we tried to winnow.

“We have to run,” I said.

“What about Alroy?” Bryce spoke up, his face still pale as he gestured to the bleeding Autumn fae on the ground.

“What about him?” I replied, giving him a nasty side glance. I had made the decision to save him from that demon-and it nearly cost me one of my closest friends. His russet eyes widened as he looked up at me. He had the same eyes as Uncle Lucien.

“You can’t just leave me here-”

Cei snarled at him. “Oh, yes we can.”

Andreas’ shadows swirled tighter around him. “We need to leave, _now_.” His muscles were as taut as the bowstring held back by his fingers.  

I stretched out my powers, feeling for the nearby court border we would have to get past. My eyes flickered from Alroy’s bleeding form and his dead sentries, to the empty space the dead creature should have occupied, to Andreas and his shadows, and then finally to my little brother. His blue eyes were now steady as they met mine, and he nodded.

“Cadell, grab Alroy.”

Cadell grimaced, but immediately followed my order and darted to Alroy, tossing him over his shoulder as carefully as he could with the blood and the wings. The Autumn Prince groaned and cursed, but smartly didn’t complain. Cei turned his icy glare to me.

“Are you out of your mind?”

I rolled my shoulders back and turned away from my cousin. “Winter isn’t too far from here. Let’s move.”

The thick expanse of the trees and two flightless companions made flying to safety another issue. I didn’t have the same affinity for Winter abilities as Bryce did, but hopefully it would be enough to get us across the border. The political downside would have to come second to getting my circle to safety.

So we ran.

Andreas, ever the deft street rat and Shadowsinger, climbed into the trees and leapt across them with his bow still drawn.

 _Tell me if they get too close_ , I said to him through the open sliver of his shields. With the rest of us being on the ground, there was a chance that he would fall back to stop the monsters himself like an idiot and I wouldn’t notice until it would be too late. He didn’t answer me, but left his shields open. I gritted my teeth as we ran.

I vainly hoped that the creeping, unnatural feeling the demons gave off would fade before we reached Winter, but that hope quickly died off as the trees began to thin out and the air began to chill. This chill was natural, clean, and I welcomed it in comparison to the cold from the strange creatures still on our heels.

Bryce ran up to my side without me having to call out for him. We grabbed hands and wrapped ourselves and our group in the clean, chilly air of Winter magic. The grass grew darker, the trees barer as we approached, and then everything became a world of white. A slight resistance met us as the border, and we sent out another wave of Winter magic around us.

_We are you-we are Winter-_

A shudder moved the air as we all ran through the border.

Panting, our group slowed down to a light jog. I turned to assess the group as we slowed to a halt, counting heads. Andreas brought up the rear, hopping down from the bare trees now that we were out of the woods.

 _Are they gone?_ I sent him.

 _Seems like it_.

I sighed out a long breath of frosty air before shivering and wrapping my arms around my bare mid-section.

“Is everyone all right?” I asked.

“Never better,” Daere panted. Cadell set Alroy onto the ground, who groaned, still clutching his bleeding abdomen.

“What now, Rhia?” asked Cei, his blue eyes still rigid and on guard.

“We need to get a hold of our parents, for starters.”

“Already taken care of.”

The new voice had me whirling around.

Kristen, daughter of the High Lord of Winter, stood not ten paces away from us with her arms crossed and blue eyes narrowed. Standing behind her was a pissed High Lord Kallias and a large group of their ice warriors. I forced down a grimace as I flipped my hair back to face them.  Andreas sent me another thought as my friends all moved closer to me.

 _Well, that was quick_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey dudes, so sorry about the long wait! Things have been a little crazy for me lately, but I have a lot more free time so except quicker updates. Also, fight scenes just take me forever to write in general, even short ones like in this chapter, so I would love any critiques on that. Hope you enjoyed!


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enjoy the angst, friends

RHIANNON

Out of all the courts to fall into this situation with, Winter and Autumn were near the bottom of the desirables. Although in the old war against Hybern, the seven courts had fought together in the end to protect themselves and the humans, our relationship with these two courts were still rocky.

A thick silence covered the room. My circle, a newly healed Alroy, a pissed Kristen and all of our parents sat together. Well, Kallias, Beron, and mine and Cei’s parents were standing.

“Your border was simply the closest to where we were attacked in the woods, sir,” I continued, keeping my gaze even with Kallias as I explained the situation.

Kristen sneered, throwing her long, dark hair behind her shoulder. “You let those creatures get into our court?”

Kallias put a hand on his daughters shoulder to silence her, but his blue eyes regarded me with nothing but cold distaste.

“The creatures that ambushed us could not get past the border,” Andreas cut in smoothly. “If anything, they seemed to be some of the more vicious creatures that inhabit the neutral territory. It’s likely that we were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

If only my Shadowsinger was always so polite.

“Bullshit,” Alroy spat, sitting up in this chair. “The precious little miracle of the Night Court summoned those things!”

A shocked silence fell over the room as everyone turned their gazes to Bryce. He swallowed, but kept his expression even.

Cei shot up from his seat, wings flaring behind him. “We should’ve left you as demon food, you ungrateful prick.”

The temperature in the room shot up a few degrees. I’d been trying hard not to shiver in my outfit, so I was secretly grateful.

“Cei,” Uncle Cassian warned. My cousin glanced back at his parent’s expressions and slowly sat down, keeping an icy glare fixed on the Autumn Prince.

Cei’s hot temper was what usually had me choosing Bryce and Andreas as the ones at my sides on anything diplomatic, in addition to Andreas not being able to fly with the twins. Cei would always be my right-hand, but using words to manipulate or control a situation wasn’t one of his strengths. The twins were even worse; currently, Cadell sat with a blank expression but his hands in tight, tight fists, and Daere was biting the inside of her cheek so hard I was worried she was about to make herself bleed. For whatever reason, my dad had advised having Cei with me instead of Andreas for this particular mission.

“What are you accusing our son of, Prince Alroy?” My mom asked, one hand on her hip, the other on the back of Bryce’s chair.

“He spoke the same language as those demons, and only chose to do so when they were about to kill one of his own.”

“You think my son can speak demon?” Dad drawled.

“I think your son should speak for himself and not hide behind his parents and older sister,” Beron shot back.

Dad shrugged nonchalantly, but I could see his irritation as he stuck his hands in the pockets of his tunic.

Bryce calmly turned to Alroy. “I wasn’t speaking a demon language. I was speaking Illyrian.”

“Illyrian?” Alroy scoffed.

Andreas responded smoothly. “Illyrians are a-”

“I know what they are, you bastard street rat-”

Darkness flared around my seat, making the other courts flinch. “Do not speak down to him.”

Alroy eyed the dark waves wafting from my form, but didn’t say another word.

Kallias sighed. “I would like to finish this so I can get all of you out of my court. So these monsters were speaking Illyrian?”

Bryce shook his head, keeping his tone completely polite. “No, sir. I was. I was very frightened for Daere, and I just slipped into Illyrian tongue without meaning to. It’s spoken fairly often around home, so we’re all fluent in it. The demons were speaking their own language. Whatever it was, I’d never heard it.”

“It was _listening_ to you,” Alroy added.

“I certainly wouldn’t call that listening. It seemed intrigued, but then it tried to tear out my throat.”

“Well, I’m certain that I can tell apart two different languages being spoken.”

“Being completely ignorant to both languages, of course you wouldn’t be able to tell them apart.”

Cei and Uncle Cassian both coughed in an awful attempt to cover their laughter. Alroy narrowed his eyes.

“I think this conversation is leading us nowhere,” mom cut in.

“Agreed,” Lord Kallias replied. “I’ll have my soldiers keeping an eye out on the woods at our border. We’ll relay a message if we see the demon creatures you described. As for anything else, I don’t care to be a part of it.”

“I suppose you’ll want to speak later, Lord Beron?” My father asked.

Alroy answered. “There’s probably no need, sir.”

Lord Beron’s gaze snapped down to his son, who shrugged.

“Prince Bryce is probably right. I have no way of telling those two languages apart.” His russet gaze fixed steadily on me. “Just a misunderstanding.”

There was a glint in his eyes that made me uneasy, but I played along and let a small smile creep onto my face.

“All a misunderstanding,” I agreed. Kristen narrowed her eyes as she looked back and forth between us.

My parents shared a glance, and then nodded in parting to the others.

“Apologies for the intrusion in your court, Lord Kallias,” mom added. He nodded in return, and then my parents winnowed our group home.

As soon as we landed, Cei and the twins burst into obnoxious laughter.

“Damn, baby Bryce,” Daere cackled. “Only you could politely call someone a dumbass.”

Bryce blinked. “I didn’t call him a dumbass.”

“You might as well have,” Cei grinned. Cadell nodded along, trying to catch his breath.

I immediately went to Andreas’ side. “Can your shadows tell when someone’s lying?”

He rolled his eyes. “Yes, princess. To answer your next question, there’s no way Alroy _or_ Kristen are letting anything go as a misunderstanding.”

I groaned, but my mom cut off any conversation.

“So,” she started, the tone in her voice halting all laughter. “Illyrian, Bryce?”

My little brother shrunk away from our parents’ sharp gaze.

“You should all go sit,” Aunt Nesta continued. We shared uneasy looks before shuffling into the sitting room.

Bryce, Cei, the twins and I squeezed onto the couch together, Andreas sitting on the arm of it next to Bryce. Our parents stood across from us.

Daere spoke up first. “To clear up some things, baby Bryce definitely was not speaking Illyrian.”

“Thanks, Daere,” Uncle Cassian chuckled.

“Just making sure that’s out there.”

Bryce stared at his hands. He hated this kind of attention, even from family. I gave him a gentle nudge in the side. He swallowed.

“It wasn’t really a demonic language, either,” he murmured. “At least, I don’t think so.”

“If it wasn’t Illyrian or a demon language, then what was it?” Mom urged.

“It’s just a really old language. A lot of old creatures use it, I guess.”

“A lot of old creatures, and you,” Cei added.

“What kinds of old creatures, Bryce?” Dad asked, his violet eyes hard. The look made me shift in my seat, and it wasn’t even directed at me, like usual. Our parents were usually gentler around him. This entire conversation made me uneasy.

Bryce glanced up and swallowed. “Like spirits.”

Tension snapped through the room. I froze in my seat, staring at him wide-eyed. Mom grabbed dad’s hand almost instinctively, and he squeezed it in return. The memories playing through all our minds-except a confused Andreas and set of twins-were not pretty.

“Bryce,” dad murmured. “Have you been going back there?”

He shook his head. “No! Of course not. Not since-since you got me out the last time. You and Amren helped me find out how to control it, and I’ve never gone back.”

Images of my dad and a nine-year-old Bryce with heavy, dark circles under their eyes came to mind, plagued by my own guilt of sleep-filled nights with my mom-while they stayed downstairs, drinking coffee and figuring out my brother’s ability. Then came my mom’s reminder that all four of us couldn’t run on no sleep while Bryce learned to control his powers, and I shook the guilt away.

“I barely even realized I had started speaking their language,” he whispered. “It just, happened.”

There was another silence as the adults shared glances.

“Could you show us what those demons looked like?” Uncle Cassian asked, looking to Bryce and I. I straightened, preparing myself to open my mind up, but Bryce stopped me.

“I could just sketch them for you,” he answered quickly. “That way you have a reference with you.”

“My shadows were afraid to go near them,” Andreas spoke up, after he and the twins wisely stayed out of the earlier part of the conversation. I’d have to explain the details to them later. We’d all tried avoiding the topic for years, but perhaps that had been mistake.

“We tried to hold them off from getting to the clearing, but there were about six of those things,” Cadell added. I glanced down at their siphons, just noticing how dull they were. They had matching gold ones; Daere’s on her left hand, Cadell’s on his right. Two halves of a whole.

Dad frowned, his eyes hardening again as he looked from me to Andreas.

“Andreas, go back to your townhouse to find your-find Azriel. Tell him I sent you.”

Despite Aunt Mor and Uncle Az taking Andreas in and raising him, everyone still avoided referring to them as his parents, only because of how uneasy the topic made Andreas. Unable to have kids of their own, they obviously loved him like he was their son.

Before Andreas or I could question my dad’s sudden order, my mom snatched her hand out of his with a glare.

“This is not the time,” she hissed at him. I flinched at her outburst, as did Bryce and Cei. Uncle Cassian and Aunt Nesta shared an uneasy glance.

“Then when do you suggest?” He drawled back.

“Not whenever you’re just feeling like being an insufferable prick.”

His upper lip curled back into a snarl. “Is that what you think this is about?”

She threw her hands up in exasperation. “Why else would you suddenly-”

Dad blinked and turned back to Andreas, cutting her off. “Andreas, go find Azriel, _now_.”

Green eyes wide, he winnowed away just as I reached out to stop him. I turned to glare at my dad for snapping like that, but seeing my mom’s shocked gaze on him stopped me.

“How dare you?”

Dad turned back to his mate, any hardness falling from his expression as he saw her hurt one. He reached a hand out to her. “Feyre, darling, I didn’t mean-”

She took a step back and winnowed away from him.

Everyone in the room watched as my dad just stared at the spot where mom had been standing, before cursing and putting his head in his hands.

I’d never seen my parents fight like that before. I had noticed a slight tension earlier today, before we had left, when dad had told me to switch Andreas out with Cei when I went to talk to Alroy. Mom had thought that was a stupid idea, but ended up siding with him, at least for that moment. They disagreed plenty, but they usually just calmly talked it out. They were mates, they were the ruling High Lord and Lady. They didn’t just-blatantly disrespect each other like that, or walk out of each other. There had to be something else going on. My chest tightened.

Aunt Nesta looked the twins up and down pointedly. With a hesitant grin, Daere jumped up from the couch before stretching her wings and giving her blank wrist a quick glance.

“Wow, would you look at the time! Cadell and I better be getting back to the House of Wind. It’s been a long day, after all. We’ll, uh, see you guys in the morning!” She yanked her brother up by his wrist, and the two of them all but sprinted out the door.

“We need to send Mor to them tonight,” dad muttered. “To make sure they’re both fully healed.”

“Yeah, after she beats your ass for this,” Uncle Cas snapped back.

Dad narrowed his eyes, letting his hands fall from his face. “Mor is the least of my worries at the moment.”

“Well that’s your own damned fault, Rhys,” Aunt Nesta added.

“Are all of you ganging up on me now?”

“What is wrong with you guys?” I cut in, shooting up from my seat.  

Dad snapped, “Nothing,” at the same time Uncle Cas said, “Your dad.”

They glared at each other. Aunt Nesta scoffed and rolled her eyes.

Dad looked away first, rolling his neck as he turned back to me. “None of you are leaving Velaris for a while.”

“What?” The three of us chorused, Cei coming to a stand next to me.

“Why the hell not?” My cousin continued, his gaze flickering over to his parents.

“Don’t look at us like that, Cei. This decision we actually all agree on,” Aunt Nesta said, giving my dad a nasty glance that he ignored.

“This is only because we can’t have you three getting attacked again,” dad explained.

I could feel my darkness simmering underneath my skin. “Oh, right, because staying in Velaris helped every other time demons almost killed us.”

Dad flinched. The memories of sharp, bloody claws against my neck and my mom’s bleeding form still often played a part in my nightmares. It probably did in his, too. I almost felt bad for snapping at him. That second time, when mom nearly died, was the only time I’ve ever seen him sob.

“Guys, it’s only until we have a better grasp on the things that attacked you today so they don’t do it again,” Uncle Cas added.

“And how long will that be?”

They didn’t answer. My fists clenched, darkness starting to leak from me.

Bryce slowly stood. “What about Eli? It’s his birthday next month. All he wants is for all three of us to get to visit him.”

I swallowed. That was all he ever wanted anymore. After that second attack, when my parents realized how much all four of us gave off power when we were together, our quality time became limited. Living in the Spring Court, my older cousin got the short end of that arrangement. I missed having him as a constant presence.

Dad sighed. “We’ll think about it.”

“We’re going to see him.”

“I said we would think about it, Rhia.”

“You’re not stopping us from seeing our cousin.”

“Keep this up and I won’t let you leave this townhouse.”

“Bullshit!”

“Rhiannon, do not argue with me on this!”

I flinched and stumbled back at the tone of his voice. His eyes softened. “Rhiannon-”

I shoved past Cei and bolted out of the townhouse, slamming the door behind me hard enough that the glass shattered.

My eyes stung as I darted down the streets of the city. Despite the summer temperatures, the early evening’s sea breeze made me shiver in this outfit. As I rounded another corner, I knew my dad already regretted using his High Lord voice on me, just like I already regretted snapping back and running away, but I was still too on-edge from those back-to-back interrogations to turn around and apologize. Hoping to find my mom, or Andreas, I made my way to Uncle Az and Aunt Mor’s townhouse. Stubbornly blinking back the moisture in my eyes, I threw their front door open and let myself inside, falling onto the couch of their sitting room.

“My dad is such a prick sometimes,” I groaned, knowing already that the two of them and Andreas were in the kitchen. And with two Shadowsingers and the Morrigan in this house, there was no way they hadn’t already sensed my arrival, no matter how sudden.

“Tell me about it,” Aunt Mor replied. I rolled over to face them where they sat at the kitchen, and then immediately sat up with wide eyes as I stared at Uncle Az and Andreas.      

“Are you guys going somewhere?”

The two of them were dressed in fresh gear, Uncle Az had his sword strapped in between his wings, and Andreas had his bow and a fresh set of arrows in his quiver on the table.

“Andreas is joining me on my mission,” Uncle Az answered, standing and leaning back against the table. I gaped, looking to Aunt Mor, who had a rare dark look in her eyes. Uncle Az had an impassive expression as usual, but his shadows seemed darker.

“Since when?”

“Since now, apparently,” Aunt Mor responded tightly, crossing her arms. This was what all the adults were pissed at my dad about, then. Well, I was pissed now, too. Pissed and very, very worried. I met Andreas’ guarded gaze, my worry winning out as I spoke again.

“You’re leaving?”

One his shadows curled around his ear, and he swallowed before nodding. Uncle Az looked over at Aunt Mor before holding his hand out for her to take, and the two of them left to go upstairs, leaving Andreas and I alone.

A strange silence stretched out between us as we stared at each other from across the room.

“I guess the new rule doesn’t apply to you, then,” I spoke up bitterly.

His thin eyebrows furrowed.

I let out a loud sigh before elaborating, trying to ease the tension. “After my dad made you leave, he then told Cei, Bryce and I that we’re on lock down. We can’t leave Velaris until they say it’s okay or safe or whatever.”

“Don’t be so dramatic, princess. You’re such a daddy’s girl, you could ask him to catch you a falling star and he would find a way to do it. Wait two days and then bat your pretty eyelashes at him and he’ll let you do whatever you want, just like usual.”

“What if I asked him to let you stay here?”

Just like that, the tension between us snapped back into place. Andreas lifted his chin and narrowed his eyes.

“Why would you do that?”

“What, you want to go?”

“I have to train in the field sometime, don’t I?”

Uncle Az has never taken him out on a mission before. His missions were dangerous, especially the ones like this one that were only between him and my parents. Occasionally, on the short trips we would all know what he was out doing, but the majority of them were too important. Too dirty. Not even Aunt Mor knew the details.

It made sense that Andreas would have to join him eventually, but this seemed so sudden. It seemed like…like the end of something I hadn’t even realized existed.

I stood, the tears that I had forced down earlier threatening to return. I had to whisper to speak, too afraid to raise my voice and hear it break.

“Andreas…”

I don’t know if it was the look he saw in my eyes or the way I used his name for once, but he stood and crossed to room to meet me. He let his shadows fall behind him, his eyes more intense and open as they looked down at me.

“I’m coming back, princess,” he murmured. Even in my heels I only came up to his shoulders. The moonlight shining through the window behind me made the strands of his golden hair glow.

“If I need you to be, will you stay on my side? Stand by me, even against Uncle Az and my parents?”

His eyes widened at the question. I wasn’t sure what compelled me to ask it. I bit my lip as I stared up at him.

Slowly, giving me a chance to pull away, he pulled me into his arms in a tight embrace. One of his hands tangled in my hair, the other rested on the bare skin of my back, warming me. I wrapped my arms around his neck, burying my face in his chest. Despite our constant bickering, Andreas has become a calming center in my life. Being in his arms like this made me realize that we had never once even hugged. He smelt like the woods right after a rain, and something else familiar I couldn’t place. I memorized it, cataloged it in my mind for whenever I needed to feel calm.

“I’ll always stand by you, Rhiannon.”

The intensity in the way he whispered my name struck something deep inside me. It was too much. This was all too much. The demons, the other courts, my parents…

I pushed myself out of his arms, stumbling back, my chest now feeling cold and tight. I turned away to leave, avoiding his eyes, afraid of what I would see there.

“Don’t die on me, street rat.”

I darted outside, away from his home, and shifted in a flash to open my wings. Shooting up into the air, I soared on wind currents throughout most of the night, over my glittering city, the wind and starlight sky being the only constant, calming presence I knew I could always be free in.

I didn’t go home until the sun started to rise behind the mountains and dye the sky in hues of pinks and oranges. At my townhouse, dad was sleeping alone, Bryce was in his usual drugged sleep, and I knew that I wouldn’t be seeing Uncle Az or Andreas for a long while.

I collapsed into bed and let myself fall into a lonely, cold darkness as sleep finally won over my mind.


	7. Chapter 7

RHIANNON

Over a month later, Andreas and Uncle Az were still gone.

Cei, Bryce and I were losing our minds being stuck inside Velaris. The twins stayed with us at first, but Daere became so stir-crazy that I finally told her and Cadell not to worry about it. Cei and I had just recently been banned from sparing with each other by Uncle Cassian after we burned through each other’s gear _again_ during hand-to-hand training. Bryce had re-painted half the rooms in our townhouse and in the House of Wind, and even he was having trouble keeping his happy-go-lucky attitude. Not even his cat was making him feel better.

“If you’re out there, demons, just put me out my misery! You can come take me away any day now!” Cei moaned from the floor of my room.

“Yeah, take him! I’m too valuable,” I added, playing with an orb of water from my drink on the nightstand. Luna watched it move with wide green eyes, tail flicking.

He scoffed. “Oh, please. I’m the only child here. If something happens to you, this court still had baby Bryce to fall back on.”

Bryce frowned where he sat up against my bed with his sketch book in his lap. “Oh, no they don’t. I’m not mean or manipulative enough to be a High Lord.”

I gaped, the orb falling with a gentle splash back into my cup. Luna blinked and mewed. “I am not mean!”

Cei laughed, while my brother twirled his pencil in his fingers and visibly struggled to find a response that wouldn’t offend me. “Well, you’re not necessarily…nice.”

“Rhia, you three stop moping and come downstairs!” My mom yelled through the house before I could respond. “We have a surprise!”

Bryce hopped up immediately, while Cei and I groaned before padding down behind him.

“It better be a damn one-way ticket out of here,” Cei muttered. I elbowed him as we walked downstairs, but didn’t disagree.

My parents were curled up together on the couch when we reached the sitting room. They’d been extra affectionate after their fight, but Bryce and I didn’t tease them for it with grossed out comments like usual. Not after seeing them that first two weeks we were on lock-down, with mom sleeping at the House of Wind and the two of them only speaking when they had to be at a meeting together. Within that time, their scent had begun to separate, just enough that only their family would’ve noticed. I had worriedly asked Aunt Mor about it when we were all at the House of Wind together, but she waved it off saying that they’d had worse fights, especially before they declared the bond. 

Then we all heard the tail-end of their argument they started after dinner, which ended with my dad saying she had poor judgement, and mom spitting back that he needed to stop acting like his father, before flying off. After a minute, dad followed her. The adults tried to shrug it off, but I caught Aunt Mor and Uncle Cassian’s worried glance as they did so.

Bryce and I woke up that next morning to our parents cooking breakfast for us. Mom was practically glowing, and dad was worshipping the ground she walked on. I remember wrinkling my nose from the strength of their scent, but still smiled at them. Even if whatever agreement they had come to didn’t appease my situation at all.

“So, where’s the surprise?” I asked.

“Coming up to the door,” dad answered with a smirk.

I frowned, and then our front door burst open. I barely had time to place the new scent before I was swept off my feet and over someone’s shoulder. My cry of surprise melted into a laugh as I recognized the light, airy laugh of the person now holding me.

“Eli!” Bryce grinned.

“I’ve missed you guys!” Eli said, spinning me in circles as he did so.

“Eli, put me down!” He had filled out since I’d last seen him, and his broad shoulder was not comfortable in the slightest where it pressed into me.

He tossed me back onto my feet, making me stumble as I landed. If it would’ve been anyone else, I would’ve bitched at them for throwing me around like that, but this was Eli. I grinned up at him instead, his excitement unavoidably contagious. He rounded to give everyone else hugs, and I hardly caught my breath before I was yanked and crushed into someone else’s arms.

“Hello, Rhia, sweetie!” Aunt Elain greeted. My arms pinned to my sides, I only smiled in return. She released me with a giggle, her smile as bright as Eli’s, and bounced behind her son to give each person a bone-crushing hug. My parents had stood to say hello as well.

“I keep telling them to greet _before_ they grab, but no one ever listens to me.”

I spun around with a laugh as Uncle Lucien sauntered in, a ghost of a smile on his face. Tackling him in a hug of my own, he stumbled back in surprise before wrapping his arms around me. I breathed in his scent of burnt cinnamon and fresh soil, a calming mixture of his and Aunt Elain’s forever intertwined smell. My chest felt lighter from having this side of the family here in my home again.

“Why don’t you three go take Elwyn out around the city?” Dad suggested. “It’s been a while.”

Irked by his quick dismissal of us, I frowned, hardly pulling away from Uncle Lucien. Mom stood with her arm looped in Aunt Elain’s, and shot him a glance that was difficult to read, but didn’t protest.

“We’re staying for dinner,” Uncle Lucien reassured me.

“A full family dinner for the first time in forever!” Aunt Elain beamed.

“Except Andreas and Uncle Az,” I added.

“Maybe,” mom said.

“Maybe?” Just like that, the lightness lifted my heart again.

Grinning, Cei clapped Eli hard on the back. “Yeah, and for us three it’s been at least an hour since we’ve made our way to the other side of Velaris and back. Why don’t join us? It’s basically a daily routine.”

Cei was a good bit larger than him now, I realized with a pang. I had no way of telling when that had happened. I bit down my laughter as Bryce and I hurriedly led the way outside.

Eli waited until we were out of earshot to speak, throwing an arm around my shoulders.

“You guys have seriously been on full lock-down for over a month?”

“What, you think I was exaggerating in my letters?” I responded.

“Oh, of course not.”

Cei snorted. “You have been known to be a little bit of a drama queen, Rhia.”

I huffed, shrugging Eli’s arm off and moving to the front of the group. “You’ve been talking with Andreas too much.”

“Actually, none of us have been talking with him at all.”

I swallowed, but didn’t respond. If he did get to come back soon, I wasn’t sure what state he would be in. Sometimes after long missions, Uncle Azriel often stayed away from anyone but the Inner Circle, and it didn’t take a lot of imagination to realize why. He didn’t want us to see him like that.

But I would be the first one to greet Andreas. Somehow, I would find a way.

Eli shook his head, locks of his auburn hair falling into his face. “This whole situation is ridiculous.”

“What do your parents think of it?” I asked.

“I’m pretty sure dad called your parents ignorant. Mom told him not to use such harsh language.”

That was why Uncle Lucien was secretly my favorite uncle. Not that Cas and Az hadn’t been a huge part of my support system since I could remember, but if I really needed a second opinion on something I disagreed with my parents on, I would go to him. He wasn’t sworn to go along with my parent’s decisions, even though Uncle Cas and Uncle Az did argue with my parents plenty. Although, I would never go as far as to call my parents ignorant.

“They’re not ignorant, though,” Bryce spoke up, voicing my thoughts. “They’re worried.”

Eli shrugged. “I didn’t say I agreed. Dad always speaks his mind, and he’s not the most optimistic fae.”

We had made our way to the music area of Velaris, right next to the Rainbow. Songs floated all around from street performers and shops and theaters. Eli smiled contently and sang along to one of the folk songs, his rich tenor voice causing quite a few onlookers.

After the song passed, we stopped at a small café to sit. During a lull in our conversation as we all sat and sipped our drinks, Cei let his head fall forward onto the table, his wings twitching irritably.

“I’m so bored I could scream,” he muttered.

Eli set his iced tea on the table. “So why don’t leave?”

Bryce frowned. “We can’t, Eli.”

“Is there a ward on the city keeping you guys in?”

“Well, no.”

Mischief danced in his eyes. “So, let’s go.”

“Whoa, that’s a pretty big step out of line,” I joked.

Cei sat back up and raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, I thought your fun days were over, thanks to your new girlfriend.”

“Alicia likes to have plenty of fun,” Eli smirked. “She only didn’t like me playing pranks around the manor.”

Bryce blinked. “Well, what other fun do you have?”

The three of us shared glances and politely tried to stifle our laughter. Realization cross my little brother’s face.

“Oh. That kind. Got it.”

Eli patted his arm. “Don’t worry, baby Bryce. You shouldn’t know too much about that kind of fun yet.”

“I know…things,” he defended.

Cei leaned towards him with a grin. “Says the boy who accidently said yes to threesome last week.”

Eli choked on his drink. “How do you _accidently_ say yes to a threesome?”

A flush spread across Bryce’s cheeks. “They asked if I wanted to come over for dessert! I didn’t know dessert was code for sex!”

His outburst drew curious and confused glances from the passerby as the three of us doubled over, cackling. He put his face in his hands and groaned.

“Wait-wait,” Eli continued, trying to talk between laughs. “Did you go home with them?”

“What? No!” He sputtered back.

“We had to come up with a fake emergency to take him home,” I added. Eli’s laughter doubled in volume.

Bryce stood abruptly, still bright red. “So, are we sneaking out of the city or what?”

“If anyone asks,” Cei replied with a smirk, “you said it, not us.”

* * *

 

“Maybe this isn’t the best idea.”

“We’re not going far, Bryce, we’re fine,” I reassured.

“Should we tell the twins, at least?”

Cei scoffed. “Fuck no. There’s a reason they’re trained for fighting and not spying. They’re the least conspicuous Illyrians I’ve ever met.”

Eli shoved him. “Watch your fucking mouth, Cei.”

“You sound like Aunt Feyre.”

“Aunt Feyre has worse language than your dad.”

“Well, yeah. Also, where are we going, Rhia?”

I rolled my eyes before looking over my shoulder at the boys. “Just a little farther. There’s a nice lake at the bottom of the mountain near here.”

We weren’t very far from Velaris at all. Getting to the lake would’ve taken twenty minutes tops if we had flown, but it would be too easy to be spotted flying over the trees, and we would’ve left Eli to walk by himself. Bryce walked closer to me than our cousins did, his hands in his pockets and his posture stiffer than usual.

“Bryce, really, we’re fine. We’re still close to Velaris, and we’ll be back before dinner.”

He blinked before turning to me, as if he had been lost in a daze, and offered me a small smile.

The tree line started to thin out, and I could see the lake spread wide in front of us, glittering from the setting sun. It was a quiet, tranquil little spot that Uncle Azriel had shown me long ago.

“We’re here!” I called, turning around to face my cousins. They had lagged behind farther than I realized. Eli’s pale expression made my grin drop instantly. Cei had a hand on his shoulder, eyebrows pinched in confusion.

“Eli? Cei?”

Cei shushed me. I gritted my teeth in response, but stayed silent. Bryce moved closer to me, his eyes wide with worry.

“The land is afraid,” Eli murmured. Cei and I shared a glance.

“I’m sorry, what?” He asked.

“The land is afraid of something…someone? A person. Someone old.”

I was at a loss for words. My older cousin was paler than I’d ever seen him, his brown eyes wide and vacant. Bryce rested a trembling hand on my arm.

“I think we need to go back,” he whispered.

With the fear in his voice, and the fear in Eli’s eyes, I turned to him to agree.

I didn’t get the chance.

_I found you, princess._

Chills ran through my body. Some instinctual part in me froze and begged to run, just like every time before a demon attack.

“You’re just as beautiful as they said.”

I whirled around to face the intruder, and balked at the sight.

It wasn’t a demon, or a fae, or anyone I’d seen in my life or nightmares.

A male stood before me, lacking the pointed ears and graceful frame of a fae, but not dull enough to be a human. His skin was an ashen gray, his dark hair ruffled by the wind-and then his eyes. His golden eyes seemed to glow in comparison to the darkness that he was made of. But it was not like my own darkness, the darkness of my court. His was like a cold void, an absence of anything other than his presence. The world around him where he stood cowered and distorted itself.

Not just where he stood. Everything else around us had been completely frozen in place. The leaves, the birds, the water in the lake, Bryce and the others. I only spared my family a short glance before narrowing all attention on the threat now in front of me.

“What did you do?” I demanded. I tried to summon up some of my power as I spoke, only to hit a stone wall where they usually lay inside me. Shit.

The male tilted his head with an amused smile. “I wanted to speak with you, love. I assumed this would be a better alternative than dragging you from the others.”

“What would be so vital to speak about, then?” As I spoke, I searched along that wall for any cracks, any thin spots, anything to lead me to my powers. He was much larger than me, and if he could apparently freeze time without breaking a sweat, I didn’t want to know what else he was capable of.

“I wanted to offer you a chance at survival.”

I scoffed before thinking better of it. His grin widened. He took a few measured steps toward me. I refused to back away, if only to stay next to my brother while he was a statue.

“Your world is coming crumbling down, princess. I would rather you not be crushed under its rubble before I build on it anew. You, among others.” His gaze traveled to my brother, and then my cousins behind me. I fought back a growl. “But you’re the only one I truly need in one piece, if it comes down to it.”

“Who are you?”

He moved faster than I could register. I nearly flinched as we suddenly stood toe-to-toe. His cold, strange aura wrapped around me, making me shudder.

“I am the one who this land first trembled under, and it will do so again. I am the one who caused the gods to nearly destroy this world, if only to take me with it. But thanks to your family’s recent…unbalances, I’ve been let out of my cage. And I will drag this world back to how it started, to how it always should have been. My pets are not even the beginning. They were testing the waters for me.”

His pets. The demons that have been a problem for us since I was little. The ones that have been in Bryce’s nightmares.

“And now you’ve ruined the surprise. Or did you want us to see you coming before you try to destroy us?”

I could only pray that I could make it back to my parents, to explain this man and his threats. As he stood this close to me, I tried to commit every detail of him to memory. He took a lock of my hair in his fingers, causing me to notice the dark tattoo that swirled on his forearm. It looked vaguely familiar.

“Arrogant fae. You don’t even know my name, love. Your written word has forgotten my name, but the land hasn’t. That’s how long I’ve been waiting. That’s how long I’ve had to think of many, many surprises. I’ve been watching your family, waiting for this opportunity to make your world fall.”

I swallowed. “You’ve been watching us for that long, and you really believed I would simply go with you at the first chance you gave?”

“No.” A dark, sadistic grin. “But at least I can say I offered.”

Then he was gone.

And I realized how badly he had tricked me.

I collapsed to the ground, gasping, my vision spotted and black. My chest heaving and heart beating at a sluggish pace, it took me longer than it should’ve to realize what had happened. He hadn’t distorted or frozen the world around us at all. Only me.

For while I had been having a conversation, my family was locked in a battle with many more of the same demons that attacked us in The Middle. That male’s _pets_.

I could hear the fighting more than see it, my vision still very, very dark. The sharp tang of blood was thick in the air, both the boys’ and the demons’. Sharp ringing rang through the woods from claws on blades, along with the growls and shouts of the fighting.

I fought to at least pull out any ounce of my magic to aid them in their fight, but even every thought of mine was too weak and sluggish to properly use it. The boys seemed to be distracting the demons enough to keep them from shredding me while I was so damn helpless. What had that man done to me?

Over all the fighting, a guttural, pained scream rang out over the sounds. Cei. The shouting from Eli and Bryce grew increasingly frantic as they spoke to each other. I tried to push myself up again, only to shakily collapse back facedown. Even making out their exact words was too difficult for me to process. Pushing against the darkness that clouded my vision grew more impossible every second.

Then, a tug in my chest cleared my thoughts and vision, if only slightly. A comforting scent washed over me.

“Rhia, Rhiannon!” Andreas kneeled in front of me. More voices sounded behind me, but it was too chaotic to sort them all.

“Andreas,” I choked out. The darkness rapidly returned. I couldn’t make out where he was exactly as I weakly reached out a hand to him. Wherever it landed, he took it in his gloved hands and squeezed it.

“Where are you hurt, Rhiannon?”

I mumbled something incoherent. My eyelids fluttered shut, the darkness washing over me completely as fear for myself and my family still weighed down every part of me.

I thought I started to float as my body stopped fighting the darkness, but then I felt more than heard a whisper in my ear, and I realized that it was only Andreas, carrying me away from the beginning of the destruction that was crumbling around my family.

   

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey dudes, trying to update this while also trying to figure out what details I can change to match ACOWAR was pretty difficult. All in all, I probably won't be changing anything to meet the main plot points found in ACOWAR, for the sake of not rewriting the entire beginning of the story and also changing things later. I might throw in a few little things to go along with canon if I can, but I'll mostly be sticking to the way I had planned on writing it before the final book was released. Even if some of it will be weird (y'all know what I mean lol).   
> And as always, thanks for your support! I love each and every one of you.


	8. Chapter 8

As slowly as the darkness had overtaken me, it released me.

I was aware of sounds first, the light chirping of birds outside, the children laughing, and someone’s slow breathing in the room. Then scents came, my own citrus one covered in the sheets of my bed and my room, and then the familiar, similar scent of my mother. I shifted underneath the sheets and ruffled my wings, trying to bring feeling back into my heavy limbs. Opening my eyes took the most effort. I had to rub the sleep away from them before I could even blink them open. How long had I been asleep?

When I rolled over, I found my mom sitting in a chair by my bed, her blue eyes hard and worried. There were dark circles under her eyes, and when I blinked up at her, her shoulders slumped, like a weight had finally been lifted from them. Guilt gnawed at my chest.

I only croaked out, “Mom?” before going into a coughing fit. She grabbed a full glass of water of off my nightstand and handed it to me, helping me sit up to sip on it. It seemed fresh, making me wonder how she had gotten here just in time for me to wake up. Mother’s instinct, I suppose.

“You’ve been out for two days, if that’s what you were going to ask.”

I nearly dropped the glass. “Two days? How?”

As I became more alert, the events that happened before I went under slowly came back to me. That strange male-what had he done?

She bit her lip. “We don’t know, Rhia. None of us have the slightest idea of what happened to you when you four were attacked. You have no visible wounds, but no matter what your dad and I did, we couldn’t get anything from your mind while you slept.”

“Well, where are the boys? What did they say?” I recalled the last things I heard from them as I spoke, dread filling me. “Are they all okay? Cei…”

She didn’t answer right away. My hands trembled as they still held the glass, water sloshing. My mom gently pried it from my hands and set it down before taking my shaking hands in hers.

“Bryce and Eli are fine. They’re downstairs, eating lunch with Andreas. Cei is in the House of Wind with his parents, your dad, and some healers. He’s not well.”

“But he’s alive? Stable?” I whispered.

She struggled to find an answer. My throat dried up again.

“He’s mostly stable. Those creatures infected him with some kind of venom that none of us have ever seen, not even Helion or Thesan.”

“You brought them both to Velaris?” I blurted.

“It was bad, Rhia. The venom did something to his head. He was attacking Eli. He was out of his mind. Your father and I both struggled to fight whatever had taken over his mind to put him under. And when he came to he wasn’t attacking anyone but…he’s in so much pain. He wouldn’t stop screaming until I got him unconscious again. None of our healers here could figure out how to help him, so yesterday we called those two and requested they help. They were able to help us figure out the best way to get it out of his system, but they hadn’t seen anything like it before either. Especially when we explained what happened when he was first infected.”

And it was all my fault. I tried to swallow away the tightness in my throat.

“I’m surprised you’re not pissed at me for leaving the city,” I muttered, avoiding her gaze. She squeezed my hands and released them before leaning back in her chair.

“Oh, trust me, when we first realized you four had left, we were all furious. But then immediately following was Azriel’s message that you were all in a lot of trouble. And then we got there and you were unconscious in Andreas’s arms, there were demons everywhere, and Cei was-” She broke off for a moment. “Once you see your younger cousin, you’ll feel the impact of how reckless of a decision it was much more than if your father or I yelled at you.”

The bluntness of her statement hit me like a punch in the gut.

“It was my idea.”

Mom’s brows furrowed at Bryce as he entered my room. “What?”

Eli came in behind him, rolling his eyes. “Not really. It was my idea, Aunt Feyre.” Bryce frowned at him.

She looked between the three of us with narrowed eyes, before sighing and standing. “It doesn’t really matter whose idea it was to leave. You all knew it was dangerous, and still did it. None of you can play innocent when you easily could’ve persuaded each other to just listen to us for once.”

Andreas appeared in my doorway then, his gaze locking with mine. All of my focus narrowed on his lean frame, searching for anything new in his appearance from when he had been gone. My mom swiftly took Bryce and Eli by their arms and nudged them out the door with her.

“Come help me scrounge up something for Rhia to eat, boys,” she said as she exited with them, closing the door behind her.

Andreas moved to sit in the chair she had been occupying, gaze never leaving mine. He was in a much more casual outfit than usual, only a tight white shirt and low riding pants that hugged his hips.

“How did you find us in time?” I asked after a moment of heavy silence.

“It was Azriel. He had shadows keeping an eye on you guys that let him know you left Velaris, but he didn’t say anything to me until you all were attacked, and then he notified your parents and we went after you all.”

“So you saw everything? You saw Cei?”

The shadows around him swirled, darkening his face. “Yes.”

I wasn’t sure if I wanted to, but- “Can I see?”

If possible, he let his shadows surround him even more. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”

“Why? I can handle it.”

“I know that. I meant because it happened as Az and I were returning from the mission. We haven’t gotten a chance to talk about it with your parents yet with everything else happening, so I don’t know how much you can know. And neither of us are advanced enough to guarantee you won’t slip and see it in my head.”

I broke his gaze, finally, glaring at the wall. “Right. Of course. So we won’t be communicating that way anymore at all?”

He scoffed. “That’s not what I said. Showing memories and speaking through minds are two different issues. You know that. Don’t be a drama queen.”

The title stung more than it usually did from him. I don’t know what I was expecting when he got home from the mission, but it wasn’t this-this new tension and awkwardness. I took a deep breath, trying to recollect my thoughts before I said something I would regret.

“Princess,” he murmured softly. I turned towards him again, still keeping my eyes down to avoid his gaze. My attention caught on his bare forearms, which were usually covered with his gloves and arm guards for his bow. A long, crisscrossing scar mangled the entire inside of his left forearm. He’d had it as long as I could remember. The details of what happened outside the city continued to flood back to me.

“Where did you get that?” I blurted, taking his wrist in my hand. He stiffened, pulling away from me and jumping up from his seat. The tension snapped back in the air between us, stretching out like miles.

“You know I don’t talk about the things that happened then.”

Then: the time when he was alone in the Court of Nightmares, in the Night Court. When he was a starving, parentless fae.

“Maybe you should start.”

Andreas turned on his heel and headed to the hallway. He paused before leaving, a shadow curling around his ear. I held my breath as I waited for him to speak.

“I think they’re done with your lunch. Are you feeling well enough to come down, or should I ask someone to bring it up for you?”

I swallowed, pushing the covers off of me. “I can come down.”

He nodded, and was out my door before I had even gotten out of bed.

* * *

The sound of my younger cousin’s screams wrecked me as I landed in the House of Wind. It was now up on the list of sounds I never wanted to hear again, right underneath the sound of my mom choking on her own blood and of my father begging and sobbing to see his mate.

I tried to keep myself grounded in reality, no matter how devastating, because being trapped in the past was worse.

I ended up standing in the hallway outside his room, his screaming echoing throughout my mind as well as the house. The others were in the kitchen, all having flown or been flown up so we could all speak about the past events, now that I was awake.

His screaming eventually dissolved into pitiful sobbing. Finally, thankfully, he quieted. There was a short, murmured conversation inside his room, and then my dad silently stepped out, shutting the door behind him. He let his shoulders slump for only a moment, until he lifted his head and caught sight of me. He picked himself back up immediately, giving me a tired smile and pushing his dark hair back into place with one hand. The other he used to pull me into him in a tight hug. I wrapped my arms around his neck and squeezed tight, worried about how tired he must be to not even have sensed me waiting in the hallway.

He gave me a kiss on my hair before pulling away, still trying to smile. “I’m so happy to see that you’re awake and well, darling. You had us so worried.”

Indeed, he had the same dark circles under his eyes that mom did. The guilt weighing down my heart only doubled.   

“I’m sorry, dad. Everything happened so suddenly-”

He shushed me gently. “It can wait until we’re all together for you to talk about it, Rhia darling. I’m too hungry to be able to process anything, anyways. I’ve been on nephew duty since this morning. Knock before you go in to see him.” With another kiss on my forehead, he left me to go to the kitchen.  

I had to control my hand’s shaking before I knocked on the door. The murmuring from inside the room quieted, and then Uncle Cassian called, “Come in.”

I stepped inside, keeping my eyes low as I shut the door behind me. Aunt Nesta sat on Cei’s bed, blocking him from view. When she caught sight of me, she gave him a light kiss on his forehead before standing and brushing past me to leave, her blue eyes like ice. Uncle Cas sighed, taking her place on their son’s bed as he slept. I shuffled over, swallowing.

“Does she hate me?” I asked, feeling childish, but unsure of what else to say.

He hummed thoughtfully before answering. “No. She blames you, definitely. But you’re just the easiest one to blame, Rhia. Once we sort out exactly what happened, she’ll be able to focus her anger on someone else.” He lifted his eyes to watch me as I stood in the middle of the room. “You can come see him. Your dad put him to sleep for now.”

I moved slowly to stand next to my uncle and look down at Cei. I bit back a gasp.

A thin sheet of sweat covered Cei’s pale, sickly skin, dampening his hair. Thick bandages wrapped around his bare upper torso and left shoulder. Under the skin of his shoulder, his veins ran black, webbing up the side of his neck and fading around his jaw and cheekbone. 

“Helion and Thesan both agreed to try and let the venom pass through his system for a few days. It isn’t causing him any harm, just a lot of pain. If it doesn’t go away on its own, we’ll have to start bleeding him out slowly to try and draw it out,” Uncle Cassian explained softly. “That’s another thing Nesta is angry about. Her daemati powers are very basic, and aren’t enough for her to fight his mind and put him under whenever he wakes up. Feyre and Rhys are doing their best, but even they’re getting worn out from it.”

“I’m so sorry,” I whispered to both of them.

Giving Cei’s hand one last squeeze, Uncle Cassian stood and pulled me into his arms, wrapping his wings around me in a tight embrace.

“Learn from it, Rhia. It sucks ass, but you always have to be prepared for the worst. None of you even had any type of armor on when you left. Just thank the Cauldron you finally woke up. I don’t think your parents would have been able to hold themselves together much longer with you being a coma or whatever.”

Barefoot, I wasn’t tall enough to reach his shoulders. But I could hear his steady heartbeat against my ear, and nodded in his chest as he spoke. He pulled away to give me a rough pat on the back and guide me towards the door.

“Let’s go while he’s still out. I wanna hear about whatever the hell attacked you kids so we can drag it back here and beat the shit out of it.”

I didn’t have much to give them, which was frustrating.

While the male had me frozen and spoke to me the other day, I had tried my hardest to commit every detail to memory. But after passing out, most of what happened was still a blur. I retold my family everything he had said to me, but only had a vague idea of his appearance. All of us, from my parents to the twins to Uncle Lucien and Aunt Elain, sat or stood around the kitchen and dining area discussing everything after I finished.

“You don’t remember any details about the tattoo?” My mom asked, frowning.

“Nothing that I haven’t already said. It was black, intricate, and on his left forearm. Even if I remembered more details, I doubt I’d be able to draw it out for you guys so you could actually see it.” My memories were apparently too muddled with whatever spell had been put on me for either of my parents to make out.

“We already knew that,” Uncle Cassian muttered. I glared at him half-heartedly. Bryce still had his sketchbook on the table, however, and had been furiously drawing in it ever since I first brought up the tattoo. There was an adorable crease in between his dark eyebrows as he worked.

“Well, whoever wants you dead is mysterious, dangerous, and hates us with a strange, violent passion. Sounds like every other enemy we’ve ever gone up against,” Uncle Lucien drawled.

“He doesn’t want me dead,” I said. “The boys either, if it can be helped. But mostly me.”

“I guess he’s not into males, then,” Eli grinned.

The conversation paused immediately and I knew with a pang in my chest that Cei was the one that would’ve had a joke to add onto Eli’s. If not him, then Uncle Cassian, who hardly chuckled. Just missing Cei threw off the whole room’s dynamic. We needed him.  

I shifted uncomfortably at what our conversation was implying. I wasn’t unused to being sought after by other fae, for power or for looks, but none of them have ever been an actual threat. My dad caught my movements where he sat next to me, placing a comforting arm around my shoulders.

Bryce slid the sketchbook down to me. “Was this the tattoo?”

I blinked, picking it up to get a closer look. Although missing a few details in the swirling pattern that I couldn’t remember myself, it certainly was a match. I confirmed it to the room, which had everyone sharing glances and looking at Bryce and I for an explanation.

“You used to draw this sometimes, when you were little,” mom murmured as she studied it over my shoulder. Dad frowned at her in confusion. She caught his gaze with an amused, but tired, smile. “A nine-year-old’s version of it, but still the same design.”

“Bryce-” Dad started warily.

“What did your surroundings look like when he spoke to you?” Bryce asked, his attention all on me. The others watched in shock as he completely disregarded our father.

His intense gaze unsettled me. “Uh, I wasn’t paying much attention to it. Everything was frozen, like I said before.”

“Was it fuzzy, the colors muted?”

“Maybe?”

Dad’s eyes widened as he caught on, while mom looked between us in confusion. “Bryce, what are you implying?”

He leaned over the table, his gaze not leaving mine. “What did the sky look like?”

Another blatant disregard of our father’s comment. Dad frowned, but didn’t yet interrupt.   

I shook my head. “The sky? There was a dangerous, random male blocking my powers and playing with my hair, and you’re asking me about the sky?”

Mom cut in sternly. “Bryce, baby, please share your thoughts with the rest of us.”

He blinked at her, and then gazed around at the others, as if he forgot they were also listening. He leaned back and fidgeted in his seat.

“I’m almost positive that male was an old spirit, and when he talked to Rhia he pulled her into the spirit world. Since she was dragged over, that could explain why she had trouble waking up. There was no real spell or power protecting her.”

Mom groaned and rested her elbows on the table to put her head in her hands. “And here I was hoping we were finished dealing with spirits.”

“I could always search for information-”

“No,” I answered, in sync with my parents. Bryce sighed and nodded.

“We have our usual ways of getting information, Bryce,” dad added.

Amren scoffed. “And how’s that been working so far?”

“Excuse me?”

“Let the boy delve into his abilities again.”

My parents stared at her with equal tired and frustrated gazes. Amren simply swirled the drink in her hand. Bryce looked between them with wide, almost hopeful eyes. Did he really want to try messing with spirits again? After he was almost trapped there before?

Although, I suppose if I had an ability as powerful and unique as that, I would want to try again as well. Probably wouldn’t have asked for permission, either.

Finally, my mom broke the silence. “We’re not talking about this right now. We really can’t. Azriel, start scouting today, please.” He nodded and stood as she paused in thought. “Take Andreas.”

Andreas nodded and left with Uncle Az without glancing back. My chest tightened.

“The rest of us can spend some free time looking around in old texts. Maybe we can send a letter to Helion and look through some of his libraries as well,” mom continued.

“Well, you should be seeing Helion this week, anyway,” Aunt Mor said.

“What? What for?”

“The Prythian Gathering? The ball that’s happened every year since the last war ended? The Day Court is even hosting it this year.”

Mom let her head fall onto the table with a groan. Dad reached around me to rub her back.

“That’s this week? Can we just not go?” I protested.

“It’s in two days, and no, we can’t just not go.”

Aunt Nesta stood and crossed her arms. “Cassian and I are not going.”

“We wouldn’t ask you to go, Nesta,” dad answered softly. She blinked, perhaps having expected more of a fight, but then simply nodded and left to go back to Cei’s room.

Uncle Cas chuckled and stood to go after her, calling over his shoulder, “Send Helion our best wishes. But not too much, we don’t want him getting any ideas.”

The twins had been standing near the doorway this whole time, and Daere caught my eye with a meaningful stare before the two walked out onto the balcony. I excused myself from my parents, who were more preoccupied as Aunt Elain and Uncle Lucien moved closer to talk to them. Aunt Mor clunked down a brand new bottle of wine by my mom’s head as they started up a conversation.

“What’s up, twins?” I asked, coming to stand next to them by the railing.

“What’s up? What’s _up_? You and Cei almost died, and we had no idea, that’s what’s up!” Daere’s hazel eyes narrowed as she turned to me, her wings flaring. Cadell stayed quiet behind her. He had a tight set to his jaw that I was unfamiliar with.

I gripped the railing tighter, a strong wave of tiredness pulling my limbs down. “Daere, I’m sorry-”

“Why didn’t you take us with you? Damn it, Rhia, don’t you trust us?”

“Of course! Don’t ever think otherwise.”

“Then why didn’t you even tell us you left?”

“Because, I don’t know-” I struggled to remember what exactly our decisions had been as we left. Awfully, I realized I hadn’t even thought about the twins until after we’d already left. With Eli with us, it had felt like old times, when we barely had come into our powers, and it was just the four of us. “We were annoyed and being childish and just snuck out.”

Daere went to reply, eyes still flashing with anger, but Cadell cut her off. “Anytime you leave here, you’re in danger, Rhia. You and Bryce. That’s what we’re here for, to help keep you safe. If you’d had us with you when you were attacked, that would have been two more people to help fight off those demons, and Cei wouldn’t be-” He paused, his voice tight.

His sister glanced at him worriedly. I frowned, their seriousness such a contrast to how I was used to being with them.

“Have you seen him yet?” I asked. They shook their heads. “He’s asleep now. Just knock when you get there, I’m sure his parents will be fine with you going to visit.”

They shared a glance, and then turned to go back inside.

“We’re always on your side, Rhia,” Daere murmured, and then they were gone. I stared after them for a moment before letting out a long groan and turning to gaze out at the rooftops of Velaris. The sun was still high in the air, sparkling on the water at the horizon.

I shouldn’t have ever doubted the twins. Since I’d met them, no matter how crazy they could get, they were fiercely loyal down to their soul. Andreas had always been the more confusing one. He’d said the same thing to me that Daere just had, but now that he’d started training with Uncle Az-I didn’t know how true it was anymore. He was going to have to start keeping things from me, and answering only to my parents. That’s how it was supposed to be, I guess, but I just hoped it wasn’t. It shouldn’t change anything between us, but the more I thought about it, about Andreas, I wanted-

“Out here feeling sorry for yourself?” Eli greeted from behind me.

I turned, not bothering to try to smile at him and Bryce. “Why not? Everyone is either really pissed or really disappointed with me.”

“Except us,” he countered, coming up to me and throwing an arm around my shoulders. “The two of us never get mad at you.”

“No one else should be either,” Bryce added. “It really was my idea to actually leave the city.”

“Bryce, you could be standing with the blood of innocents dripping from your bare hands, but if I was standing next to you, everyone would still think it was my fault,” I told him, very matter-of-fact. He frowned and turned to gaze out at our city.

“I came out here to say goodbye. My parents and I have to go back to get ready for the gathering, now that you’re awake.”

“No more switching off years for us, then?”

He grinned and squeezed my shoulder. “I guess not.”

“Thank the Cauldron.”

“I think this will be the first time in my life that I really don’t want to go to a party.”

They chuckled at me, and then we stood at the railing in silence, gazing over at the bustling city. Standing in between the two of them, I wondered if I even deserved their constant understanding and their unending kindness, with how little I had shown to care about others.

I decided I didn’t care if I deserved them. I was beyond grateful for them. 

* * *

 

I’d never felt so alone in such a crowded room.

The large, open ballroom of the Day Court was filled with music, drinking, and different fae of all courts. This was a neutral day, the anniversary of Hybern’s fall, a gathering with no politics, no bickering, and no trickery. Those were the rules, at least on paper.

Usually during these large parties, I stayed with Cei and Andreas, and we would people watch, or flirt and tease with other fae that we don’t often see. But Cei was still out for the count, and Andreas was still hardly speaking to me, as if we hadn’t been close friends for three years. At least, I’d thought we were close. For all our bickering, I’ve always thought of him as an important friend. Even if I hardly knew anything about how he lived before he became a part of our circle. Perhaps he thought differently. I’d never asked. I never thought I had to.

For all his excitement of finally getting to be here with me at one of these gatherings, Eli was wrapped up in a conversation with a few members of the Dawn Court, one of them being High Lord Thesan’s nephew. I couldn’t see Bryce where I stood near a table of drinks, but he was most likely with Sylvia or Helion’s son. I debated looking for him, considering he could be alone with either one of them. If he was with Sylvia, they were just talking, and he was fine. But Helion’s son, Xavian, was much more forward about his advances. Although he would never force anything on my brother, I still wanted to save him from the second-hand embarrassment if Xavian got too flirty and he got flustered.  

Then I found him, sitting and laughing at a table with them both. Smiling at the sight of him enjoying himself, I downed the rest of my wine and walked out of the main room, into one of the quieter halls. I still had a slight headache from being dragged into the spirit world, and the wine wasn’t helping as much as I had hoped. I couldn’t remember how many glasses I’d had. My parents would scold me for being careless if they knew, but I hadn’t seen them for most of the night, and this was the annual peace gathering, or whatever. No one was going to try anything.

I found a small, empty sitting room down the hall and decided to pass some time in there. Just as I let myself flop onto the golden, plush couch, I immediately regretted it.

The door to the room flew shut. I was back on my feet in an instant, and nearly groaned at who I saw.

An unlikely pair, Alroy and Kristen stood in front of the closed door. Alroy smirked triumphantly, while Kristen only glared. 

“What is this?” I demanded.

“An interrogation,” she answered, crossing her arms.

Alroy stalked closer. “Is your lover not following after you then?”

“He’s not my lover, and he wouldn’t be following. I left just to get a moment of peace and quiet, but now I’ve been rudely interrupted.”

I knew Andreas saw me leave, at least. He had still been annoyingly watchful all night, even if he would hardly speak to me. Any other night, and he might have followed just to bother me. Not now.

He made to reply, but Kristen cut him off.

“Save your taunts, Alroy. I don’t care enough to hear them. I’m here to talk with Miss Perfection and Manifestation of the Night herself.”

I sighed and fidgeted as if I had somewhere much more important to be. “And how long would you like to talk, Kristen?”

She sent me a cruel grin before she took a seat in one of the armchairs. “Perhaps you should sit back down.”

I should’ve grabbed more wine. This was going to be a long night.


End file.
